Category: Parenting

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Of football matches and heartbreaks

Last week, one wet morning I found myself driving down a pathetically potholed road to the twin’s school to watch a foot ball match. All I know about football can pretty much be summed up as follows:
– World Cup matches happen at ungodly hours
– Players wear knee-length socks
– Said players are violent and often get hurt
– It is dangerous to referee a football match

The only players I know of are:

– Messi (not Messy, I just discovered)
– Ronaldo
– Maradona
– And Black Pearl, Pele (that one I learnt that from an Amol Palekar film)
However, with the son all over me to come watch ‘his’ match I had little choice. I wasn’t even sure he was on the team – he was a substitute. Does that count? I had no idea. For him it certainly did. It was a big enough deal for him to strut about for days bragging about how ‘cool’ his team was.
On D-day there I was – on the off chance that he would get to play AND manage to strike a goal AND win the game for his team! Yet I was there because since the twins came along I’ve learnt to believe in miracles.
It wasn’t too bad. The light drizzle was pleasant and I got to see first-hand how H managed to come home each day with mud-caked shoes and grubby clothes. The match turned out to be a draw with none of the sides scoring. The teams then took on penalty shootouts. Wonder of wonders H was called upon to play and to take a turn at the penalty kick (the last final deciding one at that) as the teams stood equally matched. He put all his might into that one kick. 

The ball sailed across, hit the goal post and bounced right away – far far from where it was supposed to go. Even as the claps sounded for the winning team I watched his face crumple. I watched him walk away dejected, shoulders down. I saw the tears he was trying hard to hold (This son of mine cries only too easily). I felt what he felt – that he’d let his team down. I wanted to run to him, to give him a hug. But I stayed put.

Finally the teams shook hands and it was all over and I could go to him. “We lost, mama,” he said in a small voice. I didn’t say ‘It’s okay,” because clearly it wasn’t. So I said the next thing I could think of, “You’ll do it next time.” And with that I had to be satisfied.
I was glad I went.
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Bollywood and kids

I love Bollywood and there was a time I could watch
pretty much anything. I don’t remember ever walking out of a film and I’ve gone
for some pretty lousy ones. I sat through one of SRK’s absolute pits of a film
(I’m telling myself it’s age-related maturity which makes me
admit this even while the heart feels a twinge of guilt at stabbing SRK in the
back). Anyway, all I remember of the said film is that he exaggerated his worst
mannerisms and wore a jacket without a shirt ugh!!! But then he IS SRK and I
WAS young ……. and I am so digressing, but you do get the picture, right?
When the kids came along I discovered to my utter
surprise that I’d turned into a Bollywood prude. I found I had this unexplained
desire to keep them away from all things filmi for ever and ever. I
never did have a fascination for toddlers mouthing film dialogues or aping the
Dabangg dance.
I quailed at the thought of H and N watching crassly
choreographed item numbers to even more crass lyrics, painfully long drawn out
‘come-hither’ looks and counter looks, the even more painful camera shots
lingering on various parts of the female anatomy as much as the gore and
violence. Sometimes they’d come to me with a string of lyrics they’d picked up
from a friend and ask me what it meant and I’d explain the best I could. I got
by pretty well but then those were early days.
The first time N gave me grief for a film, it was Karan Johar’s Student of the Year. She was all of 6 and I was sure it
wasn’t for her while she was equally sure it just was, since ALL her friends
had seen it. To my dismay the society kids took to enacting out portions of it
and I found N staking claim to a certain role without ever having seen the
characters! She knew each of them
through her friends. Still, I consoled myself, it wasn’t the same as actually
seeing the film. Even today the non-animated films the twins have seen can be
counted on their fingers.
However, I have come to realise that trying
to keep them away from Bollywood while living in India is silly not to say
completely impossible. The trick is to filter them and that I hope I can
continue to do for a long time yet. What I remain firm on, is NOT getting
swayed by the ‘All my friends have seen it’ line. I
have friends and cousins who have taken the children along right from the time
when the kids were babies. And I have to admit the children do not seem any
worse (or better!) for it. I put this down to just another parenting quirk the children have to bear with.
I’m learning to let go little by
little. The twins have graduated from KungFu Panda to Chennai Express and we
have begun to watch some really good Bollywood films together but more of that in another post. I still do get the occasional twinge when H and N pick up some bizarre action move or
a weird piece of vocabulary from a film or when I watch N singing Manwa Lage with a look of immense
earnestness and I wonder how much of that emotion she can actually comprehend. I
AM over-thinking this I know. The sane part of me tells me kids hardly
internalise songs and dialogues like adults; but what to do – that’s just how I
feel.
And the prude in me cannot but
celebrate when given a choice the kids recently picked Minions instead of a
popular Bollywood flick. Maybe it was alright after all, alright to hold them
back just that much. Parenting is about individual instinct, right? And then about
hoping and praying fervently that it all turns out right.
What do you think? Is it okay to let
the kids be? Do we end up pushing them towards something by trying to block it
out?
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Enjoying the difference

The other day I had taken the kids to the dentist. As he cleaned N’s teeth tching tching at how she needed to learn to brush better, H noticing his beard and cap, asked in not too quiet a whisper (he is completely incapable of whispering), “Mama is he a Muslim?” I nodded a trifle embarrassed. Undeterred he went on, “Muslims wear caps na ma? That’s how I know. We read about it in class.” “Yes they do”, said I hoping the questioning would end right there.

Even as I struggled with the feeling of embarrassment I wondered why I was feeling so uncomfortable. From H’s point of view it was a perfectly innocent, though a tad personal, query. I asked myself whether I would have been equally embarrassed had he asked, “That aunty is wearing a bindi, does that mean she’s a Hindu?” I still do not know.

I was reminded of a similar incident while on a recent holiday at Lucknow. At a curio shop outside the Bara Imambara I found myself standing next to two burqua clad women. One of them picked up a small box and asked the vendor, ‘What is this?” and he replied off-handedly, “It’s of no use to you, it’s a sindoor-box’ (vermilion powder used by married Hindu women). The ladies smiled and put it back. I noticed the easy exchange wondering at how simply the religious difference had been mentioned, accepted and dismissed.

Perhaps that’s something special to Lucknow – that acceptance of the difference without attaching any judgement to it, where being a Hindu or a Muslim is just a way of life, where one can point out the difference without fear of being misunderstood.

While the uneducated/politically motivated lot insists on the ‘I/We are the best’ philosophy, the apparently educated/balanced lot go with the ‘We are equal/same’ philosophy.

Girls and boys are the same, all religions are the same, people from all regions are the same. That is so very confusing for a child. The thing is — they obviously are not. They are very different. It is the difference that gives them their identity – why take it away from them? Our lives would be richer and perhaps easier too if we accepted and enjoyed our differences.

Next time, I hope I won’t be thrown off balance when the kids put up a question like that. I hope I can allow them to question, understand and accept them with the ease and innocence that only children can.

**************

On a vaguely related note here’s a conversation we had yesterday morning during the school-time chaos:

H: Mama may I be a Muslim?
Me: You may be whatever you want but why do you want to be one?
H: They have so much fun. They get to go to the fair at the Idgah and get all kinds of goodies to eat and they even get Eedi.

They’ve recently read Premchand’s Idgah at school. I presume that’s what brought it on coupled with the fact that today is Eid and the excitement of his Muslim friends is very infectious.

I wish I had the time and the patience to explain that religion was much more than a few sweets and some pocket money. Unfortunately we were running late (as usual) and I had to let it go. Another time, another chat, perhaps.

Missing my hometown sorely today, I thought I’d cook up some sewain in honour of Eid. Mercifully a friend dropped by with a huge bowl of Sheer Khurma and saved the kids from at least one of my cooking misadventures. It turned out to be absolutely delicious.

Eid Mubarak everyone!

Doesn’t it look wonderful?
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A whopper of a weekend and the goody bag plan

It’s Monday and I’m relieved. By now I’m used to crazy weekends but this one was unusually so.

The husband was supposed to be home after about a month but had to cancel at the last moment. The kids were sorely disappointed and I was saddled with two very sulky kids over three very long days of an extended weekend. To make matters worse N had loads of pending homework from some classes she had missed. 

The goody bag plan 

We decided to tackle the biggest demon first – a bunch of over 50 math problems to be done in a day. Wondering how to get through it all without bringing out the witch in me I brought out the goody-bag plan. I think I defied all perfect parenting mantras by linking reward directly to performance but desperate times asked for desperate measures. 

I picked up some inexpensive goodies – chocolates, craft supplies, stationery items and put them all into a bag. I felt I was running short and so I also made out some coupons which could be ‘encashed’ for things ranging from a hug to a doughnut. After every five sums I’d let N dip into it and pick a goody. It proved to be SUCH a success that even H gave up his iPad and sat down to race N over those sums just so he could have a go at the goodies.

N had a great time feeling around in the bag trying to guess what there was and offering to pick out things for H. 

And then some more..

That was Friday and it went pretty well. Here’s what we crammed into the next two days:

– Dropped in at Mc Donald for a Happy Meal. Why they still like it is beyond me – they’re not too keen on the food and have far outgrown those toys, yet…. 
– Had a tiny pizza party at home 
– Made pani puri together. N has developed a huge liking for it and I’m quite thrilled to have a PP partner.
– Went out to a dosa joint one night where the kids enjoy watching how multiple dosas are made simultaneously, more than actually eating them. 
– Then we dragged out mattresses into the living room and had a sleepover with just the three of us.
– And we also managed to work on some school projects.

Now that I’ve got all that down I realise a lot of our happiness stems from food and I’m not even a decent enough cook! Wierd? Ironical? What?

I’m beyond analyses, though. I won’t say it wasn’t fun but it really would be simpler to have The Husband home. Sigh!

So what do you do to tide over difficult times with kids? Long holidays, disappointments? I’d love some help here.

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In defense of Hitler

Before I am lynched for supporting Genocide let me clarify what brought on this epiphany.
It was a lazy Sunday morning and I was happily immersed in the Express Eye. Trying to put away the moment when I would have to relinquish the newspaper I asked:
“What do you all want for breakfast?” 
“Porridge”
“French Toast”
“Dosa”
The chorus snapped me out of my Sunday mood right away. Oh how I regretted my
large-hearted gesture! Kicking myself mentally I began the uphill task of brokering a consensus. 
Democracy is hard work.
I was brought up
in, what I would describe as, a quasi-democratic home. It was democratic in the
sense that we had complete freedom to speak our minds resulting in long and very
heated dinner-table conversations (arguments) but the rules were pretty much
made for us. Even as we raged and argued and dubbed our parents the worst kind
of Hitlers, we were quite aware of this fact and stuck with the rules – well mostly
we did. (PS: I did more than my sister, that’s an aside I need to add!)
Coming back to us – ours, I feel, is a way more democratic household than my parents’. And
I am not sure that’s a good thing. I have to confess sometimes I invite the
children’s views simply to avoid a showdown later on or because I am caught up
with something and don’t have the mindspace to make a choice on my own.

As parents/teachers we do need to ask ourselves:

1.     Is the child capable of making the right choice
at his level of maturity?
2.     As the adult in charge, am I prepared to
accept his/her choice, whatever that may be?
Having the freedom to make choices is a wonderful feeling for
anyone, especially for children and they are quick to exercise and defend it
once they have it. Yet too much freedom can not just result in bad choices, it
might end up confusing the child. Try taking your young one to the toy store
and ask him to choose one toy and you’ll know what I mean.
Democracy certainly
doesn’t work all the time, definitely not in a parent-child (or a teacher-taught)
relationship.

I would like to remember that as a parent/teacher:

1.     I do know best. I might actually know the
child better than he knows himself or what’s best for him.
2.     I make the rules.
3.     I will invite suggestions but I will have
the final word.
4.     I will disregard the rebellions and will
be prepared to be dubbed the ‘evil one’.
5.     I will not forget that despite the complaints
the children will never stop loving me because deep down they know I love them
too.
Do I sound like a Tiger Mom ? Well sometimes Moms do need to get out the
Tiger/Tigress in them, even if it is only in the best interest of their cubs.
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