romilashah

[romilashah]

When you have two hyperactive kids, the house is a noise box with constant shouting, talking and fights. Two minutes of peace is a distant dream unless they have broken something and hiding in some corner. So naturally when I stepped out of bath today and found the house to be in pin drop silence, i started imagining the worst. Maybe the fridge has toppled as the younger one keeps standing on the door despite repeated reminders, broken the curtain rod for the umpteen times or broken the few left photo frames in the house or disconnected the wifi cable again and so on.... But on the contrary this is what I found. Both of them sitting on the sofa reading books. Aaah!! I tell you the bliss and happiness that sight was. Small acts that makes the mother in me pretty happy and energised to trudge through the rest of the day.

[romilashah]

Gender Neutral Parenting

 I was born and brought up in a joint family of a small town. While growing up in a country where majority favours the male gender you did not need any proof for the same. It was all around to see. Personally though I  never experienced any discrimination in our house based on gender apart from there being some instances here and there during family functions where some relatives behaviour did bring the bias for the boys to the fore. When I started working and met women from all backgrounds you could hear one heart breaking story after another and the struggle they faced growing up based on just their gender. I vowed to never discriminate between my kids based on their gender and somewhere someone seemed to be listening. I now have two and one from each gender.

When I was pregnant the first time around with Rita 9 years back I had no idea about the gender of my unborn child. What irritated me the most was that majority of the kith and kin would always talk about the baby using male gender. The day she was born and I was lying open in the operation theatre the nurse got her to me after cleaning her up and I saw this tiny being who was just a few minutes old looking at me with big open eyes. My heart just melted and I planted an awkward kiss on her cheek as that is all I could manage as I was still being stitched up as they took her to the recovery room. One thing that day I was truly sure of was that I was gonna bring her up as an equal to any boy and my husband agreed.

She was our first born and we went extra miles to do things for her. Be it the exposure she got or the toys we bought, we always aimed for things that were best and gender neutral. I bought her teddy bears and cars , dolls and trains, books and legos and over a period of time realised she enjoyed playing with the soft toys more than cars and trains. She loved pink outfits from a sea of gender neutral colour wardrobe and all girly things like dresses and gowns. Surprisingly she never liked barbie dolls and preferred books and legos more than any other toy. So the number of books, legos and soft toys in the house increased over a period of time and by the time she was two we realised that her taste and liking was always towards things that were more attuned for girls. However, this never stopped us from exposing her to things which are fundamentally considered to be a male domain. Like when she was  four years old we took her to a workshop at the Mercedes showroom where kids were gonna experience seeing the car parts and try their hand in painting a car as well. We were surprised to see that there were only two girls including her in a batch of around 20 kids. She had a blast at the workshop painting the car and trying to change a tyre. Most happy I ever saw her at any workshop. When she was 6 and in grade 1, one day she came home infuriated. I could not figure what was wrong but that she was upset with some class friends. After she had changed and rested I was surprised to see her trying to do cart wheels in the house. When I prodded she said some boys in her class had said that girls can’t do cart wheels and she wanted to prove them wrong the next day in school. I felt a string of emotions at the same time, proud, overwhelmed and happy that she knew how to take a stand for such things and disappointed and disheartened that she got to hear such gender related snide remarks this early in age. She is 9 now and still the same. Any gender reference remarks even as small as don’t cry like a girl triggers her. She loves coding and robotics but reading is still her first love.

When I had Rudy four years back I followed the same template of exposing him to all gender neutral things from the start. But even when he was a couple of months old he was always more attracted to cars and things that moved and had wheels. He loved to toss around the soft toys like a ball and had the first instinct of breaking everything up. His favourite colour turned out to be  green and aeroplanes his first love. Over the years the number of cars, construction vehicle and aeroplanes increased in the house and  the only common toy between them being legos as he loved them too. For his last birthday he insisted on buying lego aeroplanes unlike my daughter who preferred the classic versions as she could make much more things with them. He loves reading too but is not as fanatic about it as his sister. They have diametrically opposite choices for food, toys, games and movies but thankfully manage to find common grounds. For eg. he prefers watching Cars while she would prefer a Frozen but a superhero movie unites them. He does enjoy the Katy Perry, Frozen and the other songs his sister plays but he himself always prefers to listen to what’s up danger from Spiderverse, Still I Fly from Planes 2 and the iron man and star wars theme song. And to be honest they are not always amicable. We have war zones in our home at times over which movie to watch and which song to listen to or as simple a thing as who wants to sit where. They are at loggerheads throughout the day but it's all good at the end as they eventually do make up without our intervention.

 This experience that I am going through of bringing up a girl and a boy has given me a reality check of sorts. Boys and girls are born with emotional, physical and mental differences. They are as different as cheese and chalk. Trying to bring them up as equals might not always be a correct approach as they aren’t equal but unique. As a parent I believe what you can really do is give each one of them equal opportunity and freedom to explore, excel and do whatever they want. Treat them as equals when it comes to them deciding about their life. There can’t be a different set of rules for them based on their gender. I would have never realised Rita loves robotics if had not exposed her to it based on her gender and never known Rudy loves to cook if had stopped him from watching cooking videos and helping me in the kitchen. Do not assume what the kids will prefer or should do based on their gender. Give each one of them a choice to decide for themselves.

[romilashah]

Parenting in Reverse

Being a mother of a nine year old girl Rita and four year old boy Rudy, last decade has been a roller coaster of sorts. You have no control over things, situations and changes happen in the blink of an eye. Anybody who believes otherwise is just disillusioned at the least. Every child is different and unique. Things that work with one might not with the other. All siblings are world apart and every mother has to slowly and steadily understand what works best for each child. You do have books, forums, groups and websites doling out parenting tips and advice which help to an extent in settling down the parental anxiety. Everyone out there tells you what and how to teach the kids and dos and dont’s but no one ever tells you to observe and learn life lessons from your kids. Trust me these small beings are full of wisdom and if you listen and observe carefully they will teach you things that you have mostly forgotten or never learnt.

We humans are strange beings and tend to forget easily. I got a reality check on this recently. Rudy is obsessed with aeroplanes especially the Boeing 747. Every conversation with him inadvertently leads to aeroplanes. Around a week back during his online class his teacher asked all kids to draw a futuristic car out of their imagination. They were also to speak about what they drew and that was the more important part as kids this age can hardly draw a sketch. Rudy told me that he wanted to draw a flying car but I got flustered as he insisted on drawing an aeroplane sketch which he has mastered by now. I explained he could not draw an aeroplane but to no avail. Hearing the other kids speak about their imaginative cars made the competitive mother in me freak out and I told him I am not going to speak to him if he doesn’t draw something else but he refused to give in. When it was his turn to speak, while unmuting him I had no clue what he was going to say. By now the teacher too is privy to his aeroplane obsession and was like “Rudy, you have drawn an aeroplane?” And pat he replied, “No. I have drawn a car that looks like the aeroplane and flies in the sky but can also land on the road and water. Aeroplanes only land on runways. It becomes a car on road and a boat on water”. I was happily taken aback and elated that unlike my belief he was using his imagination after all. He stuck to his guns and did not give in to me made me all the more proud.

This took me back to an incident that occurred with Rita when she was almost the same age as Rudy. She was having her sports day practice races in school. Every day while walking back home I would always ask her about it. Like any first time parent who wants their child to excel in every event, I also somewhere wanted her to get a medal. I would enquire what position she came in the race each day and would get a standard response, "I don’t know”. Then one day when I picked her up she was visibly more happy and chatty and without me asking excitedly said, “Mumma today I came second in the race”. I was of course super excited and asked, “Who came first?” And pat she replied, “Everyone else”. It took me a moment to realise that she had come last in the race which I tried to explain but she did not give in. “No, everyone crossed the line and then I did. So I was second”. Listening to the conviction in her tone, I had no heart to argue with her and gave in understanding that she had her own fresh perspective of looking at things. Sure thing on the final race day she didn’t get a medal and has actually got none over the years. But what I like is that she is never disappointed or bothered by failures unlike me in my school days.

Both the incidents, though years apart, have taught me two important life lessons. I seemed to have forgotten them after having learnt it from Rita but here they are.

Believe in yourself and others: I was trying to tell my kids to believe or do things in a certain manner based on my beliefs but they both had the faith in themselves. As a parent I believe we need to trust our kids more and just be an observer in their life. Don’t help unless asked is the mantra I now follow along with having more faith on myself.

 Never compare yourself and your kids with others:  With each of my child it was the competition with other kids which drew out my anxiety. I believe it was quite unnecessary as every child like i said is unique. They being happy and confident with their choices is all that matters.