Suvo & I often find ourselves comparing notes on how things are done “here” vs “back home”. Nowhere does this conflict polarize more than, when it comes to parenting philosophy. In the quest for doing the best we can for our kids, we constantly confront ourselves with choices that hail from different courts and show no clear convergence.
While the parenting world is united on some meta-philosophies like – “be loving but firm”, the guidelines for implementing such strategy could not be more divergent, based on which part of the cosmos the conference is being held.
That is to say the “correct” way of parenting seems to be about combining unconditional love with firm stance to set boundaries & teach self-discipline to our kids …..simple enough. Yet, this simple guideline breaks down for me in simplest of situations where I cannot figure out whether to be “loving” at that particular moment or should be “firm”, or for that matter, tell apart what constitutes being “loving” vs being “firm” ….. as the definitions seem to switch as I switch lenses from my eastern classical upbringing to my western contemporary edification.
For example, when Suvo and I grappled with the kids’ sleeping arrangements and challenges as infants, our eastern heritage provided unequivocal instructions - ‘Let the kids sleep with you in your bed, that’s what loving parents do’, our western advisors however gave unambiguous direction – ‘Put them in the crib and kiss them goodnight … if they cry, let them be, this will teach them self-help/boundaries etc etc’. Love? Discipline? Which one is which? While the orient and the occident warred over the territories of our hearts, Suvo and I battled sleep deprived schizophrenia … (several years on, we have created a momentary truce by sleeping on the floor in the kids’ room while they sleep in their own beds !)
Another facet where we are encountering the dichotomy head on, is regarding our kids’ education, specifically about - whether or how much to push them to excel. Few weeks ago, I was relating one of my many conversations with Diya, about “what will she be when she grows up”, to my colleagues when one of my colleagues (US born, Indian origin) admonished me –“Ankur - Don’t be an ‘Indian Mom’.” He decoded to the rest of our colleagues –“For Indian parents, unless their kids are at the top of their class and turn into doctors or engineers, they are complete failures”. Try that for a categorical statement.
As uncompromising as the remark sounds, there seems to be some grain of truth in it. We have enrolled Diya and Aadi to “Kumon” a Japanese learning institution which promises to enhance skills in Math & Reading beyond school grade. There are about 40 kids in the group in the time-slot that Diya & Aadi go to. About 38 of them are Indians, 1 Chinese and 1 American. The institute is run by an Indian!
Suvo just posted Diya’s 2nd grade assessment in school where she fared beyond elementary school level in both Math & Reading. We have been proudly sharing this news with everyone and anyone who would listen.
So duly chastised by my candid colleague’s comment, I thought about the allegation quite a bit. Am I an “Indian Mom” – I admit that I strongly believe investing & excelling in academics; Am I an “American Mom” since I am a fierce proponent of independence and personal liberty for myself and my kids; Or am I a “Global Mom” whatever that is … maybe because I hold a deep desire to live/travel with kids in few different countries and give them exposure and acceptance of different cultures? Do I have to choose between these models? Is one better than the other? Is there a “best” answer?
Basically, I do not understand the conundrum … is it not love that guides us to discipline our children so they can learn critical life skills and be happy in their lives; shall we not discipline our love for our children so as not to spoil them?
(On a complete aside - as vociferous as the opposition is on Love and Discipline – about what is love, what is discipline, when to dole out which and how much - the house seems to be united on another dimension of parenting: “Guilt”. They all seem to be joined by their reticence …. no answer, no guidelines, no referrals ! I suppose I will join this Universal Silence and leave that topic off table for now. Later, someday later, I wish to write a book on that topic alone ! :))
So back to the topic of parenting through “firm, unrelenting, unconditional love”, there do not seem to be universal responses to universal situations that arise daily in my life with kids. Every single time, East and West war over the right course. And I am completely baffled over and over again as I try to consult the elusive “parenting handbook” for answers to simple situations that our not-so-simple kids throw at us every day.
So in search of an Answer, Suvo and I did what we do best – turn to books for wisdom.
We read, “The Battle Hymn of Tiger Mother” a book that made me laugh and cry and get angry and then laugh and cry some more. We read, “How to raise kids who think for themselves” … a quintessential western bible … (ironically the very gesture of writing or reading a “How to…” book for just about anything is a very western concept). We even read “The Third Culture Kids” about raising kids born in a culture different from one their parents were born into. Basically, a travel guide for expats, non-residents, immigrants and others who live in the parenting no-man’s-land between oceans, that Suvo and I often find ourselves in.
(After all that reading, once again, Suvo and I did what we do best. I remembered every concept in every book and ever since been trying to distill and compare and contrast and bring down to practice all of that, in vain. Suvo forgot everything, including the fact that we own these books.)
A clue to the puzzle occurred to me one day when Suvo off-handedly quoted some line he read somewhere (because he knows I am a sucker for out-of-the-can philosophies). The quote was “A child gives birth to a mother.”
Wow. Is it true? Think about that. Do we have this parenting thing all upside-down? In our attempt to “do the best we can for our kids” are we focusing too much on the first half of the phrase (‘do the best we can’) as we strive to become the best parents & look for universal wisdom; and too little on the latter (‘for our kids’) – what do our kids want/need from us as parents? How did it become so much about our values, our culture, our philosophy and our style …. Vs our kids’ personalities, their temperaments, their predilections, their styles? How did we get about shopping for one size fits all parenting philosophy when our kids, Diya & Aadi as even their names sound, are exact opposite of each other?
For as far back as my withered out Mommy-brain can remember, I have been astounded by how different Diya & Aadi are to each other. While we struggled with Diya’s lack of sleep as an infant, we worried when Aadi pretty much slept his whole first month as a baby. Diya’s most frequent phrase as a toddler was “Mamma, look at me, look at me, look at meeeeeee”; Aadi’s was “Let me be.” Diya constantly talks to us about “When I grow up, I am going to be ….. (you name it!)”. When we asked the same question to Aadi, his consistent and confident response has been “When I grow up, I grow up, I will be Aadi.” !!!
We are very aware of the contrast in our kids’ demeanors and have related these with relish to, (as they say in America) ‘everyone and their mothers’, specially the mothers ! Yet, we seem to fail to connect the dots from this to our parenting style and endeavor to find true & absolute north, a universal compass, when it comes to raising our children.
Maybe, just maybe …. we take the topic to seriously. I feel like writing the old song over again …
I say East
You Say West
No one knows
What is best ….
Let’s call the whole thing off !
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo
Just the other day, over one or the other triviality, Aadi declared beaming, “Mamma, you are the BEST Mamma in the WHOLE WIDE WORLD !!!”. My soul melted.
Thank you Raja, you do not know how much those words mean to me. I will live, to live up to those ! :)
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo
While the parenting world is united on some meta-philosophies like – “be loving but firm”, the guidelines for implementing such strategy could not be more divergent, based on which part of the cosmos the conference is being held.
That is to say the “correct” way of parenting seems to be about combining unconditional love with firm stance to set boundaries & teach self-discipline to our kids …..simple enough. Yet, this simple guideline breaks down for me in simplest of situations where I cannot figure out whether to be “loving” at that particular moment or should be “firm”, or for that matter, tell apart what constitutes being “loving” vs being “firm” ….. as the definitions seem to switch as I switch lenses from my eastern classical upbringing to my western contemporary edification.
For example, when Suvo and I grappled with the kids’ sleeping arrangements and challenges as infants, our eastern heritage provided unequivocal instructions - ‘Let the kids sleep with you in your bed, that’s what loving parents do’, our western advisors however gave unambiguous direction – ‘Put them in the crib and kiss them goodnight … if they cry, let them be, this will teach them self-help/boundaries etc etc’. Love? Discipline? Which one is which? While the orient and the occident warred over the territories of our hearts, Suvo and I battled sleep deprived schizophrenia … (several years on, we have created a momentary truce by sleeping on the floor in the kids’ room while they sleep in their own beds !)
Another facet where we are encountering the dichotomy head on, is regarding our kids’ education, specifically about - whether or how much to push them to excel. Few weeks ago, I was relating one of my many conversations with Diya, about “what will she be when she grows up”, to my colleagues when one of my colleagues (US born, Indian origin) admonished me –“Ankur - Don’t be an ‘Indian Mom’.” He decoded to the rest of our colleagues –“For Indian parents, unless their kids are at the top of their class and turn into doctors or engineers, they are complete failures”. Try that for a categorical statement.
As uncompromising as the remark sounds, there seems to be some grain of truth in it. We have enrolled Diya and Aadi to “Kumon” a Japanese learning institution which promises to enhance skills in Math & Reading beyond school grade. There are about 40 kids in the group in the time-slot that Diya & Aadi go to. About 38 of them are Indians, 1 Chinese and 1 American. The institute is run by an Indian!
Suvo just posted Diya’s 2nd grade assessment in school where she fared beyond elementary school level in both Math & Reading. We have been proudly sharing this news with everyone and anyone who would listen.
So duly chastised by my candid colleague’s comment, I thought about the allegation quite a bit. Am I an “Indian Mom” – I admit that I strongly believe investing & excelling in academics; Am I an “American Mom” since I am a fierce proponent of independence and personal liberty for myself and my kids; Or am I a “Global Mom” whatever that is … maybe because I hold a deep desire to live/travel with kids in few different countries and give them exposure and acceptance of different cultures? Do I have to choose between these models? Is one better than the other? Is there a “best” answer?
Basically, I do not understand the conundrum … is it not love that guides us to discipline our children so they can learn critical life skills and be happy in their lives; shall we not discipline our love for our children so as not to spoil them?
(On a complete aside - as vociferous as the opposition is on Love and Discipline – about what is love, what is discipline, when to dole out which and how much - the house seems to be united on another dimension of parenting: “Guilt”. They all seem to be joined by their reticence …. no answer, no guidelines, no referrals ! I suppose I will join this Universal Silence and leave that topic off table for now. Later, someday later, I wish to write a book on that topic alone ! :))
So back to the topic of parenting through “firm, unrelenting, unconditional love”, there do not seem to be universal responses to universal situations that arise daily in my life with kids. Every single time, East and West war over the right course. And I am completely baffled over and over again as I try to consult the elusive “parenting handbook” for answers to simple situations that our not-so-simple kids throw at us every day.
So in search of an Answer, Suvo and I did what we do best – turn to books for wisdom.
We read, “The Battle Hymn of Tiger Mother” a book that made me laugh and cry and get angry and then laugh and cry some more. We read, “How to raise kids who think for themselves” … a quintessential western bible … (ironically the very gesture of writing or reading a “How to…” book for just about anything is a very western concept). We even read “The Third Culture Kids” about raising kids born in a culture different from one their parents were born into. Basically, a travel guide for expats, non-residents, immigrants and others who live in the parenting no-man’s-land between oceans, that Suvo and I often find ourselves in.
(After all that reading, once again, Suvo and I did what we do best. I remembered every concept in every book and ever since been trying to distill and compare and contrast and bring down to practice all of that, in vain. Suvo forgot everything, including the fact that we own these books.)
A clue to the puzzle occurred to me one day when Suvo off-handedly quoted some line he read somewhere (because he knows I am a sucker for out-of-the-can philosophies). The quote was “A child gives birth to a mother.”
Wow. Is it true? Think about that. Do we have this parenting thing all upside-down? In our attempt to “do the best we can for our kids” are we focusing too much on the first half of the phrase (‘do the best we can’) as we strive to become the best parents & look for universal wisdom; and too little on the latter (‘for our kids’) – what do our kids want/need from us as parents? How did it become so much about our values, our culture, our philosophy and our style …. Vs our kids’ personalities, their temperaments, their predilections, their styles? How did we get about shopping for one size fits all parenting philosophy when our kids, Diya & Aadi as even their names sound, are exact opposite of each other?
For as far back as my withered out Mommy-brain can remember, I have been astounded by how different Diya & Aadi are to each other. While we struggled with Diya’s lack of sleep as an infant, we worried when Aadi pretty much slept his whole first month as a baby. Diya’s most frequent phrase as a toddler was “Mamma, look at me, look at me, look at meeeeeee”; Aadi’s was “Let me be.” Diya constantly talks to us about “When I grow up, I am going to be ….. (you name it!)”. When we asked the same question to Aadi, his consistent and confident response has been “When I grow up, I grow up, I will be Aadi.” !!!
We are very aware of the contrast in our kids’ demeanors and have related these with relish to, (as they say in America) ‘everyone and their mothers’, specially the mothers ! Yet, we seem to fail to connect the dots from this to our parenting style and endeavor to find true & absolute north, a universal compass, when it comes to raising our children.
Maybe, just maybe …. we take the topic to seriously. I feel like writing the old song over again …
I say East
You Say West
No one knows
What is best ….
Let’s call the whole thing off !
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo
Just the other day, over one or the other triviality, Aadi declared beaming, “Mamma, you are the BEST Mamma in the WHOLE WIDE WORLD !!!”. My soul melted.
Thank you Raja, you do not know how much those words mean to me. I will live, to live up to those ! :)
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo
