Me, The Mother's Anguish

So we are done with six lovely long weeks of summer break. We did a road trip, which was mostly awesome, because I ♥ drives, but the boys not so much, so it involved a lot of whimpering after we hit the 2 hour mark in any of the legs. However, all said and done, the trip was lovely. The PM was on leave for a long spell, so we basically had a full house, with no schedule to stick to, for most of the time. Lovely I say! And thankfully the weather has been kind, in that, it is not crazy hot this summer. And this week, the school of the BB and the kindergarten for the Smallie has opened, and off they have trotted happy and excited. Hopefully they enjoyed their vacations too!

And as they leave home, and I get to be home alone, I realise, I am totally and completely institutionalised. If you have watched The Shawshank Redemption, you know what I mean by that word.I am too used to being a mother with a noisy home, and barely anytime to think,being pounded with non stop questions, comments and more, to be able to live in any other condition. It has been getting hard for me since the end of last year. I began dreading getting back home after drop offs. I hated the stillness and silence the home offered in the absence of my babies.I am not a social butterfly, but I am not an alone person either. I think when I fell in love and later got married, that was one of the things I was most happy about, I would never have to look for company. And then growing into a family, has been wonderful. Been over nine years now, since I became a mother, and I have loved the journey each moment. What I don't enjoy so much though, is the boys growing up and going away.

The home feels so lonely and empty, that I want to flee, in those lonely hours. There is about as much time as I can loiter about, or run errands, or shop. I get back and I miss my boys, their presence, their noise and more. I have in many ways started envying the mums who truly enjoy the peace and quiet they get when their kids are away, when they get time for leisure or just to get their jobs done. I hope to get there, or hope to get back to work, or even just start to adjust to this new idea of being by myself, but till I do, there are some lonely empty days ahead of me, and I just hope they don't get to me as much as they had been, and I can learn to appreciate the me-time, my life that I had been seeking so hard for some years ago. Just as in the movie, I did not wish to give up those things, but I did, and I have for so long been bereft of them, that I am now institutionalised, and I no longer know, what to do with them, now that I have them back for a bit. The curse of motherhood, or maybe just an indication that I need to sort out my life and find a more to do with it!!

My Parenting Tip

Every parent in the world has a distinct parenting style, even parents to the same child, are different in their approach. To say one way is the only way, is like saying red is the only colour worth looking at. When parenting styles are very different, when they oppose each other on the basic principles, its likely to bring up disapproval and criticism. All that said, we still do try our best, and each of us learn to be parents as time passes, its a learning for us, as much as it is for our dear little miracles, bundles of joy.

Pic Courtsey : LifeLoveETC

I want to share one of  my most important principles of parenting here. Not to preach, but to put it out there, for anyone who wants to use. It has served me well!

More than anything else, I want my children to be nice people, the kind who add joy and kindness to the world, the kind who make the world a better place to live in. For me, their success will be in the joy they bring to people around them. And the simplest way I have found to inculcate that, is to develop in them a sense of empathy. I see around me plenty of people (not talking about just kids), who are helpful, but that comes with a sense of being entitled, a feeling that they are better than those they help. I try to tell my children that each and everyone on this earth, feels, just like they do, no matter what the colour of their skin, or what language they speak, or what food they eat. And for now, at their age, the only thing I want them to learn is, to not hurt (emotionally) others or be mean to them in any way.

And I wish this was an easy thing. Once the children start socialising, going to school or pre-school, they will meet all kinds of other children, and then often it becomes a fine line between telling them to stand up for themselves and yet be kind to others.With The BB, I  can see that all the efforts for the past 8 years are starting to bear fruit, and that makes me feel elated.  My way is very simple, I don't just tell them to stop doing something that feels wrong. But I tell them why, and explain it to them from the other person's point of view. If they feel like hitting someone, I ask them, how would they feel if they were the other person. If its about snatching a toy from someone, that is what I ask them to think about again,"How would it feel to have a toy snatched from you?".

The BB, all of eight and half, now, not only, refrains from mean behaviour, but tells me why he does it as well. And I can see, how he has internalised it, and understands the effect of his behaviour on others. As an example, his lovely class teacher who usually dresses up in the most beautiful feminine and floral clothes, came dressed up in a plaid shirt and pair of jeans one day to school. The BB told me, "Everyone was laughing looking at her, but I did not, because Mrs.XYZ, would feel hurt." I hugged the boy so tight, I might have bruised a couple of his ribs.This is the same boy who refused to squirt other kids with a water gun, when the came to play Holi with us, because they were younger than him, and he did not think it was right to hurt them. The Smallie, all of three an half, hugs children who are crying in his swimming lessons or his kindy, is kind to them and tries to include them in his own play, and I can see the empathy budding in him. My children are not perfect, and nor am I a perfect parent. There are plenty of screaming situations, but this is one point in their development that is very close to my heart, and I am very happy to see my efforts and principles, along with huge blessings from God, bearing fruit. Did I mention the PM is not allowed to kill the big spiders inhabiting our garden?

It did not happen in a day, but has been based on rearing them on a principle of understanding that everyone has the same feelings as them. Hitting would hurt the body and meanness would crush the spirit of others, just as much as it would their own. Just a simple understanding of that, removes all likelihood of turning out to be a person with scant respect and care for others. I think charitable acts of love and kindness in our daily life, speaks volume more than official acts of donation and charity. Love comes from the heart, not from money. When the heart is in the right place, money is but a small object. If you want a child to grow up to be kind and loving, teach them, that their acts don't have consequences,not just for them, but for others as well, and to adopt the simple principle,

 Do unto others, when you want others to do to you.

Make your sunshine, shine as bright as the sun for the whole world, as well!

And if I can just add, if we as adults, could just look at the affect of our actions and words, from the other end as well, we would all be kinder nicer people, living in a world filled with love and empathy.

And Why Disney Does NOT Work For Me.

Rather it makes me think someone up there in the high echelons of the world of Disney, has got it all wrong. Disney is all about glamour princesses, and I wonder why? That is the association we have in our minds about Disney. Its princesses are invariably sexy, and out there to find their Prince Charming. More often, than not, there is nothing, that is truly fit for children in their movies, besides being animation. Let me explain my view, taking the movie 'Frozen', as an example. I saw it with my 7 year old, and none of us were impressed. A couple of months down the line, it was a rage, selling merchandise and what not. How does that happen I wonder? Marketing, pure marketing, but marketing of what?

Often it is about creating a hype, or, a trend  and riding on its wave. I wonder when this trend began. My very Indian mother, has no longing for anything princess like, she never did. My greatest feminine obsession was possibly for a Barbie, which I got, played with about twice and was done. I did knit a purse for it though. Coming back to the point, however, I wonder when did the princess obsession begin, and why? Most countries in the world today are no longer ruled by monarchy. And where the royal families do exist, I wonder what makes the hard working common man (or woman for that matter), idolise them, do they indeed idolise their rulers? These people, referred to as royals, are rich, not because they work hard, or make things, or do anything truly productive, but just because they belong to a certain blood line. The money and wealth they posess, is gained from centuries of exploiting the hard working people of the world, or taken by force, or in plain words, stolen. Often plagued by affairs, immoral behaviour, bad behaviour, lack of ethics, these people don't exactly feel like the best role model for a child. If one looks at one of the most famous monarchies of the world today, the British Royals, we will find examples of all kinds of things that are wrong. Adultery, debauchery, cruelty, immoraity, dishonesty and what not. What then is to idolise about them? No parent in the world would seek their child to tread on that path, I am sure. I could probably identify with a princess who is kind, loving ,charitable(if that is even possible), but what we have are sexy women, acting out their parts, as glamour dolls.

Disney makes a huge deal about this entire princess business,and sells it, to make huge profits. And it does not need to try too hard either, because it has built up an entire industry around this princess-obsession over the years .Taking Frozen for example,I wonder if I missed out a memo, that stated the rule, that every princess has to be skinny and blonde? Or is that their narrow view of a very racist kind? There have been many princesses in the history of the world, who have been brave, strong and kind, but were neither white, nor blonde. And can a Disney Princess never be without a well exposed cleavage? And then ofcourse the kissing, and hankering for a true romantic attachment. So that is what should be role of a princess according to Disney, and moreover, every child in the world should want the same? In the movie, an older sister, and a princess, who is happy to abandon all her duties and responsibilities to not just her kingdom, but also her little sister, to run away, Let It Go,  and enjoy a life filled with her own whims and fantasies, is teh lead character.She is breathtakingly beautiful (with pretty unreal body proportions), but does not care about anyone, but herself. This is what the movie portrays, the children lap it up, and want to be a princess/prince, dress up, buy their merchandise and watch the movie umpteen number of times. And we wonder why the new generation is so self involved. It is not just that such movies are made, it is that parents let their children watch such movies and then encourage their obsession with these ideologies. Wonder why kids these days have relationships, have sex, so early on in life? The innocence is lost, because we parents allow it to be so.

Worst of all, the sexualisation of every character. For a movie, that is touted to be for children, that is just simply wrong. Sexual love will be discovered by children as they grow up, big clevages, heaving at the sight of beefed up men, does not need to be thrust into their faces at a tender age. I don't like princesses, I don't like sexualisation of children, or their movies, I don't like, 'being sexy' being projected as an ideal to little girls. Its long past the time, when we as parents just accept everything as a trend. We need to think about our parenting, and make strong choices, put our foot down, and let out children just be children, sweet and innocent, not waiting to pull up their hemlines and push down their necklines, waiting for a prince charming and riches. The ideals they need are of working hard and earning an honest living. Loving their family and friends, being ready to sacrifice for love. And considering Disney's exact opposite ideals, its a BIG NO, for my family.

As A Parent...

- I know I am doing something right, because

Today we enrolled my little tornado, The Smallie, in a kindergarten. He will start in Jan next year. This happened while the BB was at school. So in the afternoon, when I picked him up, I told him about the new development, and said, next year, he and I could probably go for movies when The Smallie is at his kindy. To this, he replied, "But, then The Smallie will miss you on all the fun, and we cannot tell him what we did."

- I excelled by taming my fears

We were off to the Redcliffe Festival for Father's Day yesterday. And the BB wanted to go on all the crazy rides, and they all needed a partner in tow. I hoped he would not make the height cut off, but he did, and so, I hopped in with him, my heart in my mouth, and not just 1 of those crazy rides mind you.  I hope I get brownie points for that.