Playing Roughhouse

There is a small but elaborate ritual that is played out in our house every time La Niña or El Niño hurt themselves. Perfected by Mamma dearest, this little exercise builds on the kiss-all-booboos-away philosophy that mothers everywhere employ with such telling effect.


In my case, once I hug the children and comfort them, I turn with ferocious anger on the space on the floor where they have fallen or the thing they have tripped over or the piece of furniture that they have grazed their knee against.

Letting out the full force of my anger, I shout at the offending party, “How dare you hurt my baby? You better not try your stunts ever again. Mamma’s watching and if you try something funny, I’ll come back to get you. Now say sorry to El Niño/La Niña.” This done, I say sorry as squeakily as possible and my baby is satisfied that justice has not been denied.

Sometimes as a variation, I survey the room, intently scanning the furniture and warn it not to stray into my children’s path when they are playing or face dire consequences from Angry Mamma.

So much does this game please them that they rush into my arms claiming they are in pain even when they are not really hurt. You would think that children who take such delight in being mollycoddled would shy away from any rough play. But it is quite the contrary.

The moment the Husband returns from work, he rushes to the bathroom for a quick shower in preparation for a session of roughhousing with the kids. It is a time that all three of them enjoy. The Husband lies down on his back, with his knees bent over. Then La Niña and El Niño take turns sitting on his feet, facing him, for the pleasure of being hoisted up into the air, as though they are sitting on a one-sided see-saw. All the while, the Husband mumbles some nonsensical song that goes, “Keeka, batate,” while the kids shout for more.

When the Husband is tired out with the horseplay, all three of them wrestle one another. The Husband tickles them, while they get hoarse laughing. I hover on the fringes, cautioning them to be careful, afraid that the children might get hurt. But I can see how much fun they are having.

Sometimes the Husband carries the children in his arms, their belly down and arms extended above the head, and carries them all around the house while shouting, “Spiderman, Spiderman, Does whatever a spider can. Spins a web, any size, Catches thieves just like flies. Look out! Here comes the Spiderman.” I remind the Husband that this kind of flying pattern is more Superman’s style but no one pays attention to me.

Even as the Husband is engrossed in playing these rough-and-tumble games with the kids, he keeps his head. It is his responsibility as an adult to make sure that the tickling and the tumbling always stay within limits. That they end with the kids asking for more, not with them crying.

When the games get competitive as they sometimes do, with the children competing with their father, he sometimes lets them pin him down. At other times, he declares himself winner. While La Niña and El Niño cheer wildly when they win, celebrating their victory by vigorously punching the air, it heartens me to see the graciousness with which they accept defeat. Most importantly, it is thrilling to see the bond of affection that is forged between the children and their father through the medium of roughhousing.

The Husband never excludes La Niña from the fun, insisting that it is as beneficial for her as it is for El Niño. He’s right. Studies have shown that kids who play at roughhousing with their dads grow up to be more confident. It also helps to release children’s pent-up energy in a controlled environment where having fun is the priority but Safety still comes first.

To ensure safety, there are some unwritten rules that are emphasized: No biting, scratching or kicking, no hitting the eyes or the head, and stopping instantly when the child (or the parent) says, “Stop,” or any other word previously agreed upon as the signal to cease and desist instantly. Also, playing on the carpet or bed, with lots of cushions and pillows around, helps protect the child from any hurts and falls.

Before embarking on these games, parents would do well to keep family heirlooms, Ming vases etc, out of harm’s way. This will ensure that the children have a good time without leaving the house looking like Hurricane Katrina has swept through it.

The advantages of roughhousing is that it teaches kids to have fun but in a sensible manner, reminding them that if they are not careful, it could result in pain. Roughhousing has been known to unleash the creative force in children, enabling them to feel sheer exuberance. It also helps children to understand that each person has the right to set his/her own boundaries, which others must respect.

Proper roughhousing enables young children up to the age of 10 or 11 to perceive physical contact in a positive manner. It teaches children to understand concepts like how best to balance oneself, how to judge spaces between two individuals, how to coordinate, how much force to exert etc. It makes kids more resilient and tells them that they have to keep their wits about them as they counter the challenges that come their way.

Kids learn to think on their feet, in the throes of the action. They learn to interpret and decipher non-verbal gestures, read body language and attune their responses to external stimuli, all in quick time. Roughhousing also promotes brain development, by triggering activity in multiple areas of the brain, including the cerebellum, the area responsible for motor development, and the cortex, which is in charge of problem solving, memory, language- and number-based skills, and houses memories.

While roughhousing is good for children, it is especially good for dads too. Nature has designed nurturing in such a way as to make the mother the primary care-giver for her little ones. Roughhousing allows dads to get a piece of the nurturing action. It allows both adults and children to get a hormonal rush. Not only do you experience the endorphin rush that athletes get, you also get a rush of oxytocin, better known as the love hormone, the one that is released when a child is nursed or made to feel loved.

For best results, it is better to start slow, then do some vigorous yet enjoyable roughhousing, then begin to go easy. The Husband often winds down by assisting the children with some building block activity or chatting with La Niña about her day.

That’s all there is to it. The important thing to remember is that children should never get an impression that they are not safe. Nor should the hahaheehee ever turn into a cry of pain.

There are times when I see them having so much fun, that I almost feel tempted to join them. But then I change my mind. If I start playing rough-and-tumble too, who will mollycoddle them?

After all, La Niña and El Niño need someone to turn to when the furniture needs to be forced to apologise.

This article was written for Parentous, an online community for parenting-related issues. You can read the original HERE.




    

Get Up And Dance

I’ve always been a wallflower by choice. At Catholic weddings and parties, I’d hope and pray that no one would ask me to dance. Uncles and cousins would try to pull me into the fun, but I would politely and, when required, even tearfully decline. If someone tried to pull me to the dance floor forcefully, I would stiffen up as though I were made of lead, refusing to part from the chair.

Once a childhood friend of mine, who had perhaps let Bollywood do the thinking for her, asked me, “How can you not enjoy dancing? All Catholics dance; Helen dances.”

Often I was asked, “You don’t dance? But you’re a Catholic, no?” As if Thou shalt dance was one of the Ten Commandments handed by God to Moses.


How could I explain to them? That I was a great dancer – in my head. That when I heard a great piece of music, I always stood up and swayed to its rhythm, performing the most intricate and elaborate steps, leaving watchers spellbound – all in my imagination.


In real life, I would stiffen and freeze, my movements would get jerky and wobbly. I would stress about how stupid I would look dancing. I would worry that I was not as good as the others on the floor, that I would make mistakes and that my two left feet would become the laughing stock of the gathering.



I was like Johnny Depp that way. At the premiere of Dark Shadows, a gothic horror film in which he starred, a reporter asked Depp to reveal what scared him the most. Was it witches, vampires or werewolves? Dancing, he replied, I’d rather fight a buzzsaw than dance.


And then the children came along and changed me. Now I jiggle and swivel, under their guidance. And what great guides they’ve turned out to be!

  No matter what music is playing on TV, whether it is a music video or the jingle of an ad, or even if I make up an impromptu song or their grandfather claps to the beat of some rhythm of his own, they both get into action. To them, everything is music worth dancing to. They get to their feet, shaking their bodies with abandon. It is the best way to dance, I’ve realised, not caring who’s watching. They take over the living room, and I hasten to pick up any stray toys, or other odds and ends, strewn around, lest they trip over them.


Sometimes we waltz, La Niña and I. She, standing on the bed or the sofa, in order to account for the difference in height, me on the floor. And we twirl. As we dance, we lose the grasp of our hands, and we crumble in helpless laughter.


I wonder where my children’s dancing talent comes from. It isn’t the TV, the usual suspect in such cases, since they don’t watch so much TV anyway. It can’t be inherited, because the Husband is as shy about shaking a leg, unless he is with friends with whom he might let down his guard.


These days, I find myself giving in to their pleas that I join them. Just two days ago, when La Niña and El Niño reached out their arms to me, mid-step, I jumped in as though I’d only been waiting to be asked. My mother-in-law was sitting on the sofa watching TV. I don’t know if she was surprised to see me dance with the kids. I know I was. Surprised. And deliriously happy.

  There is nothing adult about the way La Niña dances. I see little children shimmying and strutting about for the benefit of the camera on dance-based reality shows on TV. The children are clearly playing to the gallery, egged on by parents who want their 15 seconds of fame at the cost of their children’s childhoods. The kids themselves gyrate and do pelvic thrusts and other obscene gestures, while looking smoulderingly into the camera the way they’ve seen Chikni Chameli or the Zandu Balm and Fevicol item ladies do. They thrive on the hoots and catcalls that the audience bestows on their every move.


La Niña is in a world of her own. Sometimes she takes your breath away with a particularly beautiful flourish, but for the most part, it is a child’s dance. Childlike in its imperfections.


There’s more than a hint of silliness in her dance, as though all she’s doing is goofing off, having a great time, but doing it with a seriousness of purpose that suggests that dancing this way is the most significant thing that she can do under the circumstances.

  As for El Niño, he didn’t have far to traverse from the tottering steps he took as he learned to walk to the shaky steps he took as he sought to dance. He seemed to realise that either way, he was going to fall once in a while, so why not have fun anyway. Sometimes he would stumble, but he would pick himself up and laugh uproariously as though it wasn’t a mistake, but part of his delicate choreography. Today, his feet are sure of themselves, and he apes his big sister as far as he can, and improvises where he can’t.


Together, their dancing is nothing short of poetry in motion. The free verse of dance it is. It follows no set rhythms. There is no coordination between the two. But what matters is that just looking at them fills me with an overwhelming joy.


At the beginning of this year, we attended the First Holy Communion of my nephew. At the party later in the afternoon, La Niña and El Niño, and another child, continued to dance, long after everyone else sat down to eat.


La Niña and El Niño were at their dancing best, oblivious to those of us who were watching them. If La Niña happened to notice us watching, she would suddenly get bashful. Those of us in the audience quickly learned that the best way to keep her going was to pretend to ignore her. We watched her in delight and quickly looked away nonchalantly if she happened to glance in our direction.


In the midst of the dance, a child came running into the dance area, chased by another. They were playing a game of their own, and as they ran, they knocked El Niño down. He plonked on the floor, in a sitting position. He bawled for a minute or two, protesting at the unexpectedness of the disturbance. His Baba (paternal grandfather) picked him up and tried to soothe him, walking away from the dance floor as he did so.

The DJ who had stopped the music for a while, out of sympathy for the mishap that had befallen one of the three little people who were responding so enthusiastically to his brand of music, got going again once Baba walked away with El Niño. Hearing the music, El Niño immediately wriggled out of Baba’s arms in his haste to hit the dance floor again.


Watching them that day and every time they dance, I have learned some valuable lessons. Do what you enjoy doing. Who cares what the spectators think? And so what if you make a fool of yourself or they think you are an embarrassment? Why should their views matter to you?

  My children remind me, by their actions, that dancing is all about trusting your instincts, about letting go, about not needing to look at the ground below before taking your next step, about giving in to the joy of the moment.


American country music singer Lee Ann Womack once sang, When you get the choice to sit out or dance, I hope you dance.


Thank you, my darling children, for teaching your too-structured mother to get up and dance.

This article was written for Parentous, an online community for parenting-related issues. You can read the original HERE.

Three Little Words

My parents never told us that they loved us. I don’t remember a single occasion when they said, I love you, to me or my brothers. Neither in English, nor in our mother tongue Konkani, which we spoke at home.


And yet I grew up feeling solidly confident about my abilities and realistically sensible about my weaknesses. There was an air of affection that cocooned and sheltered us, even in the absence of those three words.

After La Niña was born, I suddenly metamorphosed into someone who wanted the comfort of saying those words out loud, not caring who heard them. I won’t say it was an overnight transformation, because that wouldn’t be true. It was more instantaneous.

It was after we had brought La Niña home from the hospital. I had just nursed her and she had fallen asleep mid-feed. I looked at her sweet, wrinkly five-day-old face and said, “I love you, my darling” to her, willing her to respond. She smiled in her sleep, as newborns do. Emboldened, I repeated the words. I remember still how refreshingly liberated I felt.

Over the next month or two, I invented a new method of reinforcing those words, hoping for some reciprocity. I would hold my hand to my heart and say, “I,” then touch my lips while saying, “love” and finally touch her chest, while saying a resounding “you.”

When she was about 9 or 10 months old, she began to mimic my actions, whenever we performed our little ritual which was twice or thrice a day. When she grew old enough to speak small sentences, she began to participate more fully. My mother-heart would swell with pride when she would do the gestures, and add, “I yove oo.”

El Niño was equally responsive to the declaration of love. “Avoo” surfaced concurrently with words such as Mamma, mum-mum and paa (short for paani or water). To demystify Avoo, the A comes from the ‘a’ sound that precedes the I and the ‘v’ from the tail end of love, followed by ‘oo.’ No matter how many times I say, I love you, to him, I am always rewarded by the reciprocal declaration, Avoo. Repeated hearings have not dulled the charm and sentiment of all that is contained in that one word.

Over the last 4+ years of motherhood, I have come to strongly believe that hearing the three words, “I love you,” and their equivalents in other languages, are important for a child’s growth and development. This is not to say that not hearing these words is detrimental to a child’s well being. Our parents’ generation did its parenting at a time when actions spoke louder than words, and parents were so busy raising multiple children on the strength of a few resources, that they rarely had the time or the inclination to speak their love. We turned out well, of course, and had happy childhoods, in spite of not hearing those words.

Saying, and repeating, those words, however, serves as positive reinforcement to a child that he/she is loved unconditionally. Of course, if we keep mouthing those words, without showing much for it, our children, who are equipped with a super-advanced radar for ferreting out any fake emotion, will call our bluff.

While it is easy to say, I love you, when my kids are gracious and well-behaved, I must admit I do struggle with feelings of anger and irritation when they aren’t. At such times I have to mentally shake myself in order to remember that I am correcting them because I love them. I also need to remind La Niña that just because I correct her does not mean I have stopped loving her. La Niña, of course, doesn’t see it quite that way, and is quick to tell me, “I don’t like/love you.”

I was devastated when she first put the word, don’t, before the word, love. Since then, I have rallied around, and have come to realise that children are too young to understand the full meaning of the words they bandy about so freely. The more-informed me no longer takes it as a personal affront now when La Niña shouts, I don’t like you. Instead, I counter back with the words, “But I love you.” Sometimes the corners of her mouth tilt downwards in a barely-there smile that she vainly struggles against. At other times, she gives way and we giggle wildly and hug each other.

Once she came to me and said, “Mamma, I know you don’t love me.” I began to protest at this, but she interrupted and re-phrased, “You’re just saying it. I know you love me very little, as much as the namak (salt) we put in our food.” I was reminded of that famous story, which incidentally La Niña does not know, in which a king asks his three daughters how much they love him. Often mistaken as the plot of Shakespeare’s King Lear, this story sees the older two speak of their love in glowing terms, while the youngest tells her father that she loves him as much as salt. Furious at being compared to a kitchen ingredient, the king disinherits her. It is only when the sympathetic cook stops adding salt to the food that the king understands the worth of his daughter’s love.

I replied to her, “That’s not true. I love you very, very much, and just to prove that, next time I will add 100-million-ek-lakh-one-thousand-and-twenty (La Niña’s understanding of an infinite number) grains of salt into your food.”

I love you isn’t the only thing our kids need to hear from us. They also need to hear from us that we are proud of them when they say or do something good. Approval is as intrinsic to a child’s sense of self-worth as love is.

With every positive expression, we are building up our children’s self-image. The easiest bricks available for this laudable task are the three little words that ought to be some of the most overused in every parent’s vocabulary.

This article was written for Parentous, an online community for parenting-related issues. You can read the original HERE. 

Our Toy Story

“Tell your family and friends not to gift us dolls,” the Husband said, soon after La Niña was born. “No child of mine will play with dolls.” I was quick to take offence at this unjust slight against my maayeka (Indian term for a married woman’s maiden home).

But the aggression was short-lived. I knew him enough to know that it wasn’t the garden-variety of dolls that he was so vehemently opposed to as that paragon of impossible perfections, Barbie. Since I hated Barbie too, the argument ended before it even began.


As a child growing up in a Single Income Multiple Kids family, my brothers and I never asked for toys, knowing that the moolah was in short supply. Nor were there any malls or big brands to tempt us. Besides back then, children had healthy outdoor playing habits. Few people really had toys. We had cricket bats, rubber balls, sock balls too, carrom boards, playing cards etc, but we never thought of them as toys, more like props for our games. And yet what fun we used to have.

I wanted that for my children. I wanted them to have fun, without having to rely on toys. I didn’t want them to feel bored if the batteries of some expensive remote-controlled racer car ran out. I wanted them to be able to rely on their own imaginations to rustle up a fun time. I didn’t want them to bawl when their toys broke.

In fact for much of my childhood, a little plastic doll, about a foot-tall, was my pride. She was nothing like the plastic dolls of today, with separate body parts and clothing and accessories. This one was fashioned out of a single sheet of plastic that was then moulded into the shape of a doll and painted over. Its inside was completely hollow. How I loved that doll! My love did not falter even when my older brother painted a moustache over her lip. Once someone stepped on her and her stomach was completely flattened. I still remember how Dad did some repair work and got her up and about again. She retained the dent, of course, but I loved my ‘dented and painted lady’ all the same.

Nor did the Husband have any toys of his own as a child. In fact, he told me (and I've noticed my younger brother do this too, so I know it is a boy habit), he used to pretend his pencil box, eraser, even books, were cars and drive them around, making appropriate engine sounds with his mouth.

The fact that we had had fun with almost no toys had convinced us that the world is a playground and that fewer toys are actually better for kids in the long run. There’s no question of siblings fighting over toys. In the absence of toys, children learn to be creative with the other objects around them.

La Niña and El Niño have enjoyed themselves enormously playing with odds and ends such as a discarded talcum powder container, cassette covers, steel and plastic spoons, pencil box, comb, a large brinjal (which was soon confiscated), an old broken telephone, a desk calendar etc. The plethora of objects around the house encouraged their creativity and imagination.

The kids learned to play together and often involved any parent/grandparent who looked suitably idle in their playtime sessions. They also learned to look after their toys. After playtime was over, they put their toys away. Sometimes.

When the toys ceased to entertain them, and Mamma was home, there was always time for a cuddle and a book reading. Or a drawing and colouring session on some used paper. Another advantage was that our home décor wasn’t overtaken by building blocks, stuffed bears, steel kitchenware, rubber and plastic balls and bats and plastic toys. And oh, the greatest joy, to be able to go to a mall without fearing a long list of demands or tantrums.

Both of us agreed that we didn’t want our children to measure the worth of their childhood by the wealth of their toys. That sequence in the Arnold Schwarzenegger film, Jingle all the Way, where all the parents are at the toy store, ready to bite each other’s heads off and get killed in stampedes in an attempt to get that all-coveted Turbo-Man action figure was a nightmare we didn’t want to play a stellar role in.

Once children get bitten by the lust for new toys, a hunger that toy companies and big brands riding on the back of cartoon TV channels judiciously nurture, toys cease to be childish playthings. They become status symbols, much as gadgets become for adults. Cost no barrier. I am, therefore, I want.

On the few occasions when we set out to buy gifts, things didn’t really go well for us. We were once walking through the children’s section of a mall. The Husband insisted, “We must buy educational toys for our children,” all the while eyeing this huge remote-controlled child-scale model of a car, large enough for a toddler to sit in and pretend it was the real deal. I realised that if I wasn’t careful, we’d end up buying toys that my children’s Dadda never had when he was growing up.

Incidentally, both the Husband and I are against Chinese toys. The few times we have looked for toys either for our own kids or for other children, we painstakingly look for the Made in India tag. Naturally, there are not too many toys like that. So we buy books instead.

Even though we steered clear of toy purchases, our home got inundated by toys after the first birthday parties of La Niña and El Niño. We put the toys out of the kids’ reach, having decided that we would bring down a toy or two on infrequent occasions as a special treat, or when the kids weren’t well and needed special comfort.

The advantage of this method of offering toys selectively ensured that, aside from a few well-worn toys, they always had something new to look forward to, which would promptly be put away after playtime. This made the few toys appear endlessly new in their eyes.

Above all, both of us consciously admitted that we had to be our kids’ first toys. When I sing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star or try to reproduce animal noises, the effort is likely to go further than a Chinese-made piano belting out nursery rhymes and Beethoven’s Fur Elise with equal felicity.

When the Husband goes down on his fours to be a donkey for the kids to ride on or when he playfully wrestles with them, he achieves far more than toys that promise to stimulate the synapses in their brain and enhance their cognitive abilities.

After all, the big toy corporation has always been stressing, Toys R Us. This is our way of showing we believe them.  



This article was written for Parentous, an online community for parenting-related issues. You can read the original HERE.  

Parenting – Then And Now

I’ve almost given up reading the newspapers these days. There’s just too much happening there that frightens the parent in me. I have been feeling completely overwhelmed.

When I look at my children, I feel a strong urge to protect them no matter what. To wrap them in my arms, so they feel secure.

It’s not that the world has suddenly become a more dangerous place to live in. Danger has always lurked around the corner. Parents have always warned their children not to talk to strangers.

But the definitions of stranger and danger were more clearly demarcated back when I was a kid. That apart, there are other problems. When we were kids,parents and kids alike weren’t running faster just to stay in the same place.

Today the challenges that confront us as parents are manifold. Stress, greater demands on our time, resulting from greater economic pressure, and fewer support systems have begun to tell on us. The strain is showing.

Of course, in the interests of fairness, I must admit that we have far more resources to help with parenting challenges today than our parents had.There are childcare books, magazines and websites, including Parentous.com, written by informed amateurs and professionals alike. Compare this with the lack of correct information and the over-enthusiasm of friends and family that our parents had to contend with as they struggled to listen to their own parenting instincts. Today we have more knowledge on our side, besides more support when it comes to our children’s needs, no matter what those needs may be.

The fact that there is less pressure on women to be perfect housewives is leaving us more freedom to achieve our own goals and dreams and grow as individuals. The learning and experience can only help us to become better mothers.

The fact that we are delaying marriage and parenthood is enabling us to bring in some more wisdom and maturity to our parenting struggles. Thanks to this maturity, we are able to establish a more equitable relationship with our children, one in which we can be parents, establishing rules and providing security, while being friends, enabling a higher degree of honesty and communication between us. Whether we’re up for the challenge or not, at least our children know that they can come to us for answers, even when the questions are tricky or uncomfortable.

Technology too has helped make our task easier. Today we have cell phones to help us keep in touch with our children when they are away. A delayed class, a cancelled train, they’ve lost the power to terrorize parents. I can still remember the stress my mother used to undergo if we were even five minutes later than the time we were supposed to be home. And that in a far safer age! And of course, if there was an emergency, she would be even more stressed out.

But on the flip side, we’ve lost far more than we’ve gained. Back then, we used to spend whole evenings playing with our friends. Raucous playtimes they used to be. At any given moment, our parents weren’t aware where we were.We may have been at one friend’s house watching TV, or at another friend’s playing carom or in the open ground outside playing outdoor games. Wherever we were, we were safe. The community was an extension of the family, and under its benign gaze, we thrived.

School itself was a safe zone. We studied the stuff in the syllabus, and competed with our classmates in a variety of areas. But we were not subject to the intense pressure that kids these days undergo.

Today we have doubts about our kids’ safety and security. Whether they are at home with a maid, or at school, or at a friend’s house, we can’t help feeling nagged by worry. When they are online, we have a new spectre to worry about. Cybercrime is real and dangerous, and we hope our children will be safe from its clutches.

Back in the day, my parents knew all my close friends, the ones I hung out with. They knew them all by Face and had their names, phone numbers, and addresses in their Book. When the time comes, I shudder to think of the “Friend” request I will have to send out to La Niña and El Niño, and of the other/alter life that kids assume online.

Television brings so much of sexuality and violence into the drawing-room long before children are capable of processing it sensibly. Thankfully, La Niña and El Niño barely watch any TV, except for Go, Diego, Go and Dora The Explorer whose content I heartily approve of.

Then again, most families back in my childhood were single-income families. The very word ‘disposable’ income had not yet come into vogue and parents were forced to make a rupee stretch as thin as possible in order to meet the family’s needs. Today double-income families have become the norm, and family times, once the high point of the dinner table, have become scarce. Children’s daily routines comprise so many activities today that they hardly have the time to be themselves and enjoy their childhoods blissfully.

When you think of it, the goals of parenting remain the same, even as the challenges and the contexts differ from one generation to another. As mothers and fathers, we have the responsibility of looking after our kids and raising them well, looking after their needs and wants, equipping them to be confident and secure, teaching them the difference between right and wrong and encouraging them to choose the right option every time, even when the choice is difficult. Even as we do so, we struggle against circumstances, the tedious business of earning a living, and the challenges that life and society throw at us.

I grew up in a very secure and loving family atmosphere. My parents, despite having very little, raised us well, giving us the comfort of knowing we were loved and the courage to go out and chase our dreams.

Looked at from my standpoint as a child, my parents were all-knowing. I knew I could rely upon them through any difficulty and my trust remains staunch to this day.

I hope the Husband and I can do the same for our children, so that at some long-distant point in the future, they will look back on us and see that despite the challenges we faced, we did our best. And that whatever we did, we did out of love.

This post was originally written for Parentous.com, on online community for parenting-related issues. You can read the original post HERE.

Towards More Meaningful Conversations

The average parent spends 38.5 minutes per week in meaningful conversation with his/her children, the tidbit of trivia proclaimed from the page of a magazine that my temporary neighbour in the bus was reading. Naturally, I was intrigued. Unfortunately, no sooner had I made myself comfortable next to her, she folded her newspaper and proceeded towards the exit. Leaving me to wonder, where did I rank as a parent on the meaningful conversations scale?

I started having conversations with La Niña and El Niño as soon as the pain of the C-sec surgery began to wear off. Day 2, I think it was. I just talked, about the fun we would have, the places we would go to. I had read somewhere that with every word we speak, we are making deposits in the memory banks of our children, teaching them to speak, form sentences, and express themselves.

As a working woman who spends a little less than 5 hours commuting to and from work, I have precious little time with my children. By the time I reach home, it is time to feed the children and put them to bed to ensure that they get their daily quota of sleep and that my school going daughter in particular is able to wake up on time the following morning. While El Niño, at 20 months, is too young to hold a conversation with, La Niña at 4½ years of age has a lot to talk about.

To my despair, she rarely talks about what happened at school. I feel a little left out sometimes, considering that as a child, I used to give my mother a word-for-word account of what happened at school. She knew all my teachers, their physical descriptions, habits, foibles, attitudes, even though she had never seen them. I miss that with La Niña.

The thing I remember and cherish most about my conversations with my mother when I was a child was the histories she would share, old family tales and anecdotes that told me more about myself in turn. Those stories put life into perspective for me. I look forward to sharing such stories with my kids.

While La Niña is not very keen on talking about school, there is a lot that my little girl does want to talk about. She faithfully relates to me the conversations she has with her imaginary friends, one of whom is a single woman named Chennai, and another is a married mother of three boys named Calcutta. The boys incidentally are named Peru, Fanas (Marathi for guava and jackfruit) and Banana. I enjoy these conversations and look forward to them.

La Niña’s stories are widely imaginative and thoroughly entertaining. They tell me a lot about her state of mind at any time, things she worries about, things she is upset with etc. Sometimes she even sneaks in some news about school happenings, but from the perspective of one of the three fruit-boys.

We talk all the time, all through her waking hours. Even when she is watching TV, she discusses what she watches. The other day, one of the biscuit ads showed a boy eating a biscuit and turning into a tiger. “What a crazy ad!” she declared, “Eating biscuits does not make you a tiger.”

Often she asks me questions about how my day has gone. At first, I found myself trying to simplify things so she would understand until a day when I realised that I was underrating her capabilitiesand that she was capable of understanding far more than I was giving her credit for.

I am always amazed at our conversations. La Niña is very observant and often initiates discussions about things she sees. We have spoken about a destitute woman lying on the road, homeless families, crowded trains, buses and helicopters and hungry crows, among other things.

These interactions have helped me to realise that meaningful conversations don’t necessarily have to be about weighty subjects. They could be about the simplest of things, but they have to have meaning for you. La Niña and I have had meaningful conversations about why a dog’s tail is shaped like a question mark, about where crows get their food from and why school buses are always painted yellow. I allow myself to get engrossed in those conversations, because I know that if the channels of communication between us are kept open and free, she is more likely to approach me when difficult questions plague her mind.

Of course, there are many times when she really tests my patience. Through her angry refusal to do my bidding and my explosive ranting, I have come to realise that even though we are both talking a lot at such times, it isn’t a conversation that is helping either of us.

Having meaningful conversations with children has wide-ranging benefits. Conversations help our children to break up the events of the day into bite-sized pieces that are easy to understand and relate to. Numerous studies have found that parents who engage in meaningful conversations with their children are rewarded with offspring who are more motivated, more emotionally secure and confident. Never underestimate the power of regular parent-child conversation.

Successful conversations also require us to respond immediately when children first call out to us, to listen with more than our ears, to give our complete attention to our children, to not interrupt when they are talking, to encourage their questions and respond to them with affection.

Sadly modern life doesn’t leave us much time to engage in conversation with our partners, let alone our children. It would help if we could drum up the strength of will required to turn off the television, stay logged out of our emails and social networking sites, and eat meals together.

It’s best to start early with children while they still think of us as the epitome of wisdom. Before we know it, the kids will grow up and we might have to run the risk of indulging in conversation that is a mixture of texting and grunting.

Meanwhile, I still don’t know how well I measure up on the meaningful conversations scale. Maybe I should go home and initiate a deep conversation with La Niña on the subject.


This post was originally written for Parentous.com, on online community for parenting-related issues. You can read the original post HERE.

An Open Letter to a Brand New School Year

Dear School Year 2012-13,




It’s that time of the year. That time of life.


My daughter, my little darling, my pride and joy, is about to get into her first year of formal school.


My firstborn, so far sheltered within the embrace of the home and never too far away from the loving arms of those who care for her, is stepping out into the real world. My husband and I have been her teachers so far, and we will continue to share our feeble wisdom with her. But now we’ve come to one of those baton-passing moments in life.


Given the magnitude of the milestone, you must forgive me if I seem a tad sentimental. You’ve probably seen countless young children pass through your stately portals since the first school began. But this is a first for me. Maybe in three years when it is time for my little son to take those steps, I will be more assured. Of course, knowing me, I’d say, highly unlikely. But no harm in being optimistic, don't you think?


By the way, you must forgive me for writing this long missive. I am a little overwhelmed, and I’m hoping that writing to you will help. You see, I am a mere mortal, and this motherhood thing is my grasp of something bigger than me, something too big for me to contain. And like every mother, I want the best for my child. Not just the best things. Even the best, well, non-things.


What I want for her seems conflicting at first sight. I want to be able to protect her always; I also want her to be independent. I want her to always remain within my sight, so I know that she is safe; I also want her to fly and achieve her own goals. I am not bothered by my own ambivalence. It is only natural for human beings to feel very deep and sharp emotions for their little ones.


I read somewhere that the most important thing that parents can teach their children is to get along without them. As a mother who still has an invisible umbilical cord binding her with her kids (then again, which mother doesn’t?), I find the separation (for want of a better word) strangely disconcerting. I knew there would come a time when she would grow up, and start to do her own things, have her own friends, make her own decisions. I knew that life would beckon and she would answer it. I knew this would happen. And yet I feel as if I have been caught unawares.


The one year she spent at her playschool, KidsLand, of course, doesn’t matter. For one, it was just down the road, so it never really felt like she was away. And secondly, there's something about kids at playschool. They all studiously ignore each other. It's as though, somewhere deep down in their little minds, they've got it all figured out; they know it is only a temporary arrangement.


Besides, going off to school is, in most cultures, the first definitive rite of passage. It is the first time my little girl will be setting out on her own. She will be making her own friends, getting snubbed, bullied, yelled at (sometimes with good reason, and sometimes without). She’ll learn to distinguish between good company and bad. She’ll learn that, if she lets them, people will buoy her spirits and deflate them in equal measure.


One part of me, a very small part, would like to cling to what has been so far. To her childish prattle, to her innocence, to her dependence on me. But even as I cling, I know childhood is not mine to keep. She has to grow up. She has to learn to be independent. Losing one's illusions is one part of growing up. But I am still optimistic enough to hope that she only loses her naivete, not her innocence.


Experience, I’ve learned, is the best school teacher. And life throws so many experiences at us. It cares little whether the person at the receiving end is a wizened octogenarian who has seen more than a 1000 full moons or a little one whose age is a single-digit number.


School itself is a foretaste of everything that life can offer. Bullies, fighters, among other things. Ironically, children will still persist in believing that algebra and exams are the greatest bugbears there ever will be.


But despite it all, school was fun for me. I made some good friends. I had fun learning. Not everything I learned back then has particular relevance to my life today, but I won’t abuse you for that. That is the fault of the education system.


Because I loved and enjoyed school so much, I wish the same for her. I hope she will enjoy school. My parents were encouraging and supportive throughout, never once pressuring us to score more marks, and I hope I can do likewise.


I remember returning home every day to give my mother a blow-by-blow account of everything that had transpired at school that day. I’d like her to use me as a sounding board in just that way.


I hope her eyes light up when she sees the school library. I hope she reads all the books there.


When she steps on to the playground of her school, I’d like her to stretch her arms and legs and feel refreshed at the thought of being out there in the open.


Of course, school isn’t the place it used to be anymore. For one, it’s been accused of wiping off the originality that kids are born with.


You know what I mean. You know how children are. You’ve seen enough of them over the years. Every moment of every day is brand new and carries within it the seed of a host of beautiful experiences and opportunities – that is the attitude with which children view and live life.


I’ll be keeping a close watch on what the school teaches my kid, and hopefully I can teach her to understand and question, to ask and listen. I see us (my husband and me) as allies of the school, doing our best to bring out the best in our child. I hope the school and I are on one page on this.


I hope even as the school seeks to educate her, it also instills in her values of goodness and kindness, courage and sensitivity.


I wish I could sit her down and talk to her about all the mistakes that I made back then and all the things that I would do better if I had the chance. But four-year-olds have no need for philosophy. And I have no desire to burden her with the load of my accumulated experience. Right now she is living in an ideal world. All rights, almost no expectations or responsibilities, except for the “Put your toys away,” variety. But that will soon change. Examinations, tests and other challenges will loom up large.


Right now my little girl and I are best friends. I hope it stays that way. Through the wonder years and the hormone-driven years when kids are always rolling their eyes in the presence of their parents, when they find their parents so un-cool. 

I told her yesterday that she would be making friends in the big school. And I asked, “Will you forget this friend when you make other friends?” And then she said something that fit snugly in my heart. She said, “No, Mama, they will be my school friends. You are my best friend. ”


When it comes right down to it, I must confess, there is another concern. Once you are a mother, you never stop worrying or thinking about your children. You get used to feeling vulnerable on account of them. And then you realise that you cannot always protect them. It's enough to drive anyone batty. Fortunately for my sanity, I am a prayerful woman. And so I am going to pray to Someone to whose authority you, O unit of Time, are as subject as I.


I am careful not to project my anxieties on her. In their own childish way, little children are far more mature about these things than we can ever hope to be. It is we adults who must guard against the urge to put our old, burdened heads on their young shoulders.


School also brings another huge change into our lives. I will now have to get used to there being a whole host of influencers in my child's life. Right now, there is just me and my husband, and she cheerfully accepts whatever we tell her. But that will change as she enters school. Back in the days, I remember closing some arguments with my parents with these words, "My teacher said so." And the peer group, that formidable set of youngsters that gives many parents sleepless nights, will also raise its hydra-like head. And she may begin to wonder how her parents who such a short while ago were the smartest people she knew suddenly don't seem to have a clue about anything.


My little girl has been the centre of the Universe for so long. Now she will meet other little people who have also held similar positions of importance, and through those associations and sub-associations will emerge her world view and her self-image. She will make mistakes along the way (as parents, we would give anything to spare our children the pain of going through some tough life experiences and choices, but that is not to be). It is Nature's decree that every being must face its own tests, make its own mistakes and learn its own lessons.


As I put my thoughts down on paper, trying to sift through the welter of emotions that has overwhelmed me, I turned to watch my little girl fast asleep, blissfully unaware of the things that were driving her mama into a tizzy. The expression on her face calmed me, and as I watched my sleeping child, I made a wish and more for her.


I wished that even as she lost her illusions, an inevitable part of growing up, she may never lose the magical prism through which she now views life. May she grow without the gravity that is associated with growing 'up'. May she never forget that her mama and dadda will always be there for her.


And so finally the uniform was crisply ironed, the shoes shined, the little school bag and the accompanying paraphernalia of water bottle and tiffin box all ready. And somehow, in a halting, faltering way, juggling her my-darling-is-a-big-girl-she-can-take-care-of-herself and her my-sweet-baby-I-hope-all-goes-well-with-her moments, this mama is ready too.


Dear School Year, 2012-2013, Bring it on.

The Jugaad of baking a cake

With the first bite of the cake, my four-year-old daughter brought together the thumb and forefinger of her right hand to indicate just what she thought of Mama's cake. Her mouth was full of cake, and she couldn't wait to empty it before digging her teeth into yet another bite. Feedback had to be given, meanwhile, but there was no reason why she should call a halt to the eating process while doing so.


Her little mouth, all smeared with icing and crumbly cake, brought a broad grin to my face. For this Proud Mama, it was Mission Accomplished all the way. Of course, there were miles to go in the cake decorating department, as you would see if I had the courage to upload the pictures, but for someone who had been hoping and praying that the baking effort would yield something edible, it was extremely heartening to know that the result was so delightful. My spirits, like the cake, rose wonderfully.


Baking a cake had been on my mind for a long time now. The kitchen and all the adventures it promised had begun to take centre stage in my life ever since the birth of my daughter. The thought of cooking something for her gave me a great deal of joy. Then as she grew older and I discovered that she had a very sweet tooth, I began to take delight in rustling up sweets for her. The desire to bake grew as a natural offshoot of that.


In my childhood home, birthdays were given special treatment. Mum and Dad tried their best to do something special for the person whose birthday it was.


We would all go for Mass to pray for the health and well being of the birthday baby. Mum would cook the favourite dishes of the child whose birthday it was. It was only when I grew older that I realized that I didn’t really have any idea about what dishes she and Dad liked. Even on their birthdays, we got to eat our favourite dishes.


One of the birthday treats that we really looked forward to was Mum’s cake. It was a no-nonsense crumbly sponge cake that would fill the house with its special aroma. I would inhale deeply of that redolent air, gulping by the lungful that precious scent which offered such a foretaste of the treat that was in store for us.


We didn’t have an oven back then. So Dad, ever the resourceful one, conjured up a provisional oven for her. I am using the word 'conjured' because even then it seemed incredible to me that something so heavenly and fragrant and crumbly and moist could come out of a whatchamacallit like that.


A large vessel would be placed on the gas, the burner knob stationed at Simmer. The base of the vessel would be strewn with a one-inch-thick base coating of white sand. Upon the sand would be placed an old rusty trivet. And upon that trivet Mum would place our lone aluminium cake pan, all greased and floured, with the cake batter in it. Then Mum would cover the large vessel with a lid and pile a few burned-out embers of coals upon it.


It was hard to imagine that such a contraption, so makeshift in appearance, could produce such a euphoric feeling. Modern Indian corporate literature on innovation has a word for this. It is called ‘Jugaad.’ Using one’s creativity or imagination to make do with whatever apparatus or conditions are available at hand to produce the desired result.


Dad was always good at doing this kind of Jugaad at home. Thanks to those attempts, so unbelievable to other people, we children would have our very own birthday cake.


For an hour or sometimes more, the cake would bake. There was no transparent glass, as is provided by modern-day ovens, through which we could view the spectacle of the rising cake. At length, Mum would check the doneness of the cake by gingerly removing the lid, complete with embers. Then she would hold her head back for the first gush of steam to dissipate, then poke the cake carefully with a knife. We children, encouraged by the aroma of a baking cake, would wait eagerly for that moment when we would have our cake and eat it too.


After my daughter was born, there was simultaneously born in me the urge to re-create all the little treats and traditions that my parents had so willingly created for us. But I was only able to do so most recently after the purchase of my brand new oven.


Today I realise that in spite of not having so many of the appliances that make life convenient to us, Mum and Dad managed to do so much for us because they wanted to. Maybe successful parenting, like successful anything else, cannot do without its fair share of jugaad.