A few years ago, while I was still recovering from my cesarean delivery and had barely analyzed the features of my one-day-old baby girl, I could hear only one conversation running in the room, "Whom does she look like?". It was of course only my husband who had contributed to her genes according to his kith and kin. The twentieth time I heard that question, I frankly wanted to scream that, she looks like a boiled potato right now! I love my daughter but how can a day old baby resemble anybody! I think clashing of ideologies began that day and doesn't seem to cease anytime soon.
Child rearing is like those baby soap ads, which looks all glossy and glamorous only on Instagram and Facebook and that too when others post them.
Parenthood is already imposed with so many practical hiccups that, sleepless nights are just too mundane to talk about. Your toddler wants to poop only when you are having your food. These two activities have coincided so many times that I no longer understand the difficulty of others when I can comfortably talk about healthy bowel movements while serving food to my guests.
Talking about the generation gap, I feel I have one with my husband who is elder to me by a full 3 months, forget about my parents and in-laws. I am sure all the ladies out there will agree with me that, most men have a tendency of becoming these idealist protective fathers especially to daughters! It can get only worse if you are staying in a foreign country.
My toddler started her pre-school about 6 months back and I have been depending on my husband to get her ready for school from the past few weeks due to my advancing pregnancy (Yay! the second one is on its way{Pun intended}). My daughter couldn’t have felt more South Indian as her dad generously applies a gallon of coconut oil on her and when I say on her it's literally all over.
Do you know how he convinced her?
He has told her that her teacher will not be able to catch hold of her, for any mischief she does because she can easily slip away. I watched this helplessly because Dr. Benjamin Spock says that parents should always pose like a team in front of their kids and trust me I felt nothing short of Saurav Ganguly in front of Greg Chappell.
A week later she was playing around when we were watching a regional movie, which had a scene where a forest officer couldn't catch the thieves because they were disguised as local tribes with lots of oil all over their bodies and my daughter immediately got all excited saying "Just like me and my teacher" and my husband jumped with joy saying, "Yes, very good observation!". That is when I felt the apples don't fall far from the tree.
The battlefield can get only messier when it comes to the already messed up education system. My husband studied in a Kannada medium school till his tenth grade and then suddenly was enrolled into an international residential school because his parents felt his academic career can be better. He, of course had his hardships due to the transition and overcame them due to his sheer quest for ambition and hard work.
On the contrary, I studied in a CBSE school till my tenth grade and then suddenly joined a pre-university college where Geetha Gyana Yagnas used to be conducted every Saturdays because my parents felt I was losing on my traditional values. Which I successfully entrenched by the way, thanks to my quest for clarity of thought. So, clearly, the confusion has always prevailed.
We want our kids to be globally relevant yet retain the juxtaposed traditional concepts. This requirement has posed so many questions in my mind while growing up and still does that I feel at odds when I get free parenting tips!
However, parenthood is one such battlefield where the middle ground has to be found inevitably and we have to bow down to Dr. Spock and play a reluctant team player many a time. So, we decided to enrol her to a school that has an ICSE curriculum, a territory unknown to both of us.
As I tread through these ideologies feeling like a bundle of contradictions who is always the villain in the household and whenever my daughter asks me "Mom are you still wearing those angry eyebrows?", I wonder if she will ever know that her mother's eyebrows are the proudest set of eyebrows whether trimmed or not, which probably may never get noticed. Well, that's why my mother laughs whenever she sees me juggling with these thoughts. I can literally hear her say in my head "been there, done that!" and now it's my turn.
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