Bringing Up boy!

It has not been long since the Bois locker room scandal hit the news. I will not go into details,  but in short it highlighted the Rape culture in schools. The scandal soon faded away, leaving space for other scandals to hit newsrooms. But it brought forth a lot of questions. How did kids from good families turn out like that? Was it peer pressure at play? Was it technology? Was is exposure to too many things at too young an age? Was it bad parenting? I even heard debates on working mums vs stay at home mums , who is the  better nurturer, the role of the fathers clearly being skipped……well because……..patriarchy. Where it became a reason to air our insecurities, it also became an excuse to massage our egos by congratulating our own family values……because well “humare ghar ke bachhe toh aise ho hi nahi sakte” (our kids are different from these “type” of kids). But i feel the one thing amongst so many that these incidents should have taught us is that our kids need nurturing, not just by way of good nutrition, clothes, school education, after school activities, etc but by also inculcating healthy mindsets by maintaining  a culture of  open communication at home. 

Boy and my sorry attempt at his sketch!

Each year on my son’s birthday I write a letter to him. I have been following this ritual since the last couple of years. My children love the play of words and express themselves in their writings. So last year I wrote a long letter on my phone notepad and then handed it over as a print out for my son to read. Now my darling boy , who is by now used to my hand made cards, DIY birthday party decorations, pushed-to-the-limits kind of cake designs for his birthdays decided to complain about how the letter could have been hand written
for personal touch! (Facepalm!)

Anyways this year I skipped that tradition and decided to write this instead. The last year saw him change a lot, in maturity as well as physical appearance. He has gained height , lost all his baby fat, and we continue to witness a  little boy entering early adulthood. We suddenly find ourselves hanging out with a  mini- adult who is experimenting with the concept of being “cool”, who talks nineteen to the dozen, one who practices his wisecracks on us and his sibling (sometimes getting into a lot of trouble as a result), whose hair gets extra attention in front of the mirror every morning, and who sometimes tries his luck with the father by asking him for what he calls “ a cold one” (read-beer). 

Jokes apart, this year has found me wanting to say all these things to him and all the other young children I have come to love as my own:

1. I wish for you to nurture a mind that knows how to discern between love and desire, with ‘respect’ being the winner in all your relationship gambles.
2. As you and other boys change in body and mind , so do the girls around you. You will find your moments of awkwardness around mingling with the opposite gender. Make sure to learn to bridge these gaps rather then widen them, else you will lose out on developing an understanding about half of mankind. Plus girlfriend Kaise banegi! Jokes apart, I wish for you to see your friends, not as girls or boys , but as peers who have an equal right to their opinions.
3. I wish that when the time comes, you would know that  ‘no means no’ and a ‘maybe’ doesn’t automatically translate into  a ‘yes’.I look at this from 2 dimensions 1) respecting other peoples’ choices 2) respecting yourself enough to not fall prey to temporary temptation.
4. I wish for you to hold wisdom and not succumb to the comfort that stereotyping provides. I wish for you to see a world where women earn the bread and men can warm it for them. Where child-minding and housework can be a shared task.
5. I wish for you to be able to always speak your mind, yet know you may receive dissent and that its healthy for it to have happened. 
6. I wish for you to be able to build opinions, yet not hold yourself to them with handcuffs. People can evolve and so can you.
7. I wish for you to enjoy your social media existence and learnings with abandon, but be conscious of the fact that it provides you what you seek. If you seek trouble and negativity and so shall you recieve. You may be tempted to share with the world that you bought your first convertible……….ok well lets get real here…………….you got your first 100$ pay cheque, I would rather wish to see you share that with your friends, siblings or grandparents in the real world by taking them out for a small treat rather then announcing to the whole world on social media and then coming back to a lonely room. I wish for you to be able to enjoy your online existence yet not be swayed by the sometimes popularity it has to offer. The 80-20 rule can sometimes be very helpful in mindfully engaging in social media. It’s simple, make sure you live atleast 4 times the life and principles you claim to have on social media. 
8. I wish for you to find happiness in your friends’ successes. The mere fact that you are the privileged one  who they decided to share that news with, speaks volumes of the confidence and love you provide them.
9. I wish for you to know, to envy, is to be human, as long as it encourages you productively and calmly to build your own path to whatever you seek instead of engaging in bad mouthing or negativity. 
10. I wish for you to understand that there is no degree of popularity, wealth and material possessions that shall define you as a well balanced human. What you build within you in terms of mental, emotional and physical soundness is what shall carry you through life. 
11. I wish for you, a child who was born in 1 country and raised in so many others, to not need to prove his inclination to any of these countries. I wish for you to respect your Matrabhoomi and Karmbhoomi with equal fervour. The world continues to get polarized based on religion, boundaries, gender, class. I wish for you to traverse these paths with clarity and good intent.
12. I wish for you to be able to discern between commitment/love/endurance and emotional/physical abuse, be it in friendship as well as other relationships. 
13. I do not wish for you to be the most successful in the room ,or the richest or the most intelligent or the most macho. I will instead trust you to define what limits work best for you and instead shall wish for you to find contentment and happiness in what you find. Also life has its share of ups and downs, and you will get your share too.I trust you to learn to endure whatever comes your way.

As your parent, I wish for myself to hold on to the belief that you came through me and not for me. I do not own you, yet for a bit I am  part responsible for your nurturing. I wish to be able to see it through till my time allows. Learning is a 2 way street, and I am not looking to give you sermons without having the appetite of receiving some from you. We are all evolving together. So I wish for you to be able to communicate with me things that i can myself work upon. Yours forever, Ma!

This is from an year back when I could still boast of being taller then him!

People, generous enough to have read this post, please do share with your children, beliefs that you hold wise and also do share with me other things that can be added to the list. Please be mindful, I am not a parent who believes that I need to direct the course of my childrens’ lives , but someone who enjoys being a part of what they create. This list above has been built based on conversations we have at home. I believe that a gentle nudge in a positive direction goes a long way in nurturing these young souls and there is so much we learn in return. I do not believe in holding insecurities of any past lives or experiences to nurture children because it does more damage then good. But that topic is for another day………….