Month: February 2018

10 things my daughters are growing up with

After the things that O +ve and B +ve are growing up without, now it is time for what they are growing up with. Again, some planned, some unplanned, some voluntary, some involuntary, basis the situation. Never sure, what is good parenting, what is not. Let’s see.

Father at home: O +ve and B +ve see me at home 24 hours, in my shorts and t-shirt with uncombed hair and unshaven face. They see me doing household chores, getting involved in all the action along with them, always consulting their mother before taking the final decision. Yes, they do want their mother around all the time, but they have never suggested that I should start going to the office again – I take solace in this and suppose that I am hanging in pretty ok.  Wondering what impression they are going to have about Men as they grow up.

Free time: With no playschool, no daycare centre, ever so imaginative mother away for work; daughters have only their clueless father as a company for the major part of the day. I have no idea about the concept of no schooling leave aside homeschooling; I suppose that is what I end up doing unintentionally.  Girls have loads of free time during the day with no structured activities, but 2 tasks – be a child and have fun.

Weekly Outing: With no parks, no accessible green spaces in the near vicinity that we can walk to, I take them out a couple of times every week ; to parks, gardens, grocery stores,  by lanes in our neighbourhood, metro station, villages in which their mother works and of course, to their grand parents’ house where they get to immerse in their granny’s  roof-top kitchen garden – watering the plants, digging soil, checking out insects and birds, collecting dry leaves and plucking tomatoes  to their heart’s content.

Maggi: No Lays, no soft drinks but, we love our Maggi. The 2-minute convenience when the mother is down and out (you guessed it right – I am a stay-at-home father, but I don’t cook; yet to get over all the so-called man-hood qualities), Maggi has been the only saviour. I get over my guilt with the thought that it might have Lead, but if it has gone around for so long, once a fortnight will not hurt much. Sorry Girls, your father just refuses to learn cooking.

Sharing and Ownership: They shared their living space before they came into this world, and it continues and will continue. They have their dedicated sets of tooth-brushes, shoes, water bottles; the rest of the stuff is all shared. They eat food from the same plate, wear clothes interchangeably and when one falls ill, the second shares the medicine also (she will anyways require it in next 48 hours). Being a single child, I haven’t had to share most of the times. And even now, I don’t always get it right on that front. But I am glad my daughters have to experience the sharing bit right from their birth.

Sharing also leads to understanding the concept of ownership. The twins understand colour coding, so whenever there are two sets, they pretty much stick to their own. And for anything that is one, we have a concept of 80:20, 80% of the time young ladies ask, wait for their turn, give and take. For the rest 20% of the time, they push and pull.

Bi-lingual: With a Telugu mother and a Gujarati father, we were warned by many, including a top-notch paediatrician that the girls might get confused between languages and might be late-learners when it comes to speaking. Well, the opposite has happened. They speak both the languages fluently for their age, can translate instantaneously for our benefit and go on and on in the language of their audience. Hindi and English are currently waiting for their turn.

I-pad: Yes, we do not have a TV at home and I do not use a smartphone, but we do have an I-pad, that was bought a year before the girls were born. It was hardly used even until the girls turned one. After that, the I-pad just sprung to life. One of the girls is extremely finicky about the quantity of food, and the other one with the taste of food, enough to drive us crazy all the time. We needed help to get them started for their meal times and Little Baby Bum videos have been a life-line. Also, they are just the kind of exposure we want for our daughters. If not having girls interested in TV and smartphone meant that they will not have any screen time at all, then that has not been the case. They are currently outgrowing this need as well.

Sweet & Sour: They love their sugar, their sweetmeats. They adore their lemons and all other tangy stuff that they can pop into their mouths. Another advantage/disadvantage of having parents from two different regions of the country. I just cannot handle anything sour, my wife does not have a great liking for sweet, and the two girls have developed a fondness for both.

Hands-On: My wife runs an experiential travel firm for kids (https://www.facebook.com/Travelwithdirtyfeet). It is what we believe in totally. So, hands-on is what defines our parenting as well as our daughters’ childhood. They are involved along with us in everything that we do – dusting, cooking, doing laundry, shopping for groceries, fixing and repairing household stuff, running errands, whatever it is including tidying up their own clutter. In other words, doing things together is what describes us.

Thumb sucking: Both the girls have a habit of sucking their thumb and couple of fingers respectively when they are nearing their sleep-time or are tired and want to rest on their parents. Have seen complete strangers walking up to us and giving us home remedies to cure our children of this. Whereas the paediatrician says that it does not require any kind of intervention till they turn four. We are of course fine with what the doctor tells us and hence with our daughters’ sucking, but quite a few people around us just want us to pull their fingers out from the mouth. Another of our free advice syndrome.

What is your must-have growing up list for your child?

10 things my daughters are growing up without

Every parent would want to give the best possible childhood to their children. We are no exception, trying hard in our own way, unsure and wavering, but trying nevertheless our understanding of what parenting is. Whilst working on a list of what my daughters are growing up with, I also put together things that they are not doing, that they are growing up without. Some of these are well thought out, calculated decisions, whilst some are inadvertent.  Sharing with you, in no particular order, what O +ve and B +ve are not having in their life, at present.

Playschool: A WIP decision, so as to say. Our daughters are 3.5 years and my wife and I believe that they currently belong to their home space. They are in the familiar ground, exploring and learning at their own pace, adequately engaged and occupied. Eventually, they might go to school. When and where? We are taking six months at a time to get to that and are not in a hurry at all on that front. One thing we know for sure is that we want them to just enjoy their childhood. Whenever we go out or have people over, we are often bombarded with advice as to how much damage all of this will cause to our kids. More on this later.

Television: Barring for a year in Mumbai, i.e. 2008, we never had a television in our life. In the course of the day, there are times when there is too much of action around me, I do feel tempted to use the services of the idiot box to get them off my back and buy myself some time to breathe, some time to go to the washroom. But the repulsion that we have for the passivity that television brings along with it never allows us to put this thought into action. The result – our twins are growing up without TV. They do know about its existence, they get to occasionally check it out during their social visits and hospital visits where it is perpetually on. Thankfully they aren’t asking for it as yet.

Advertisements: This is a conscious one. We know that girls are growing up to be a part of a society which promotes consumerism in every possible way. Why do they have to know now – which detergent powder to use, which toothpaste to use, what clothes to wear and so on? I do not like “Pester Power”, the term used by advertisers to manipulate children and their thoughts. And I hate advertisements which show children vouching for a product. I googled and realized that there are countries that ban advertisements aimed at children, but as is the case in India – yahaan sab kuch chalta hain.

Pink: Since we began shopping for our daughters, we have had to buy two sets of everything to keep things separate and to ensure easy identification. Thanks for this, we were saved from the deluge of PINK. But soon realised that the only other option was Blue. The omnipresence of Pink and Blue across all kids’ stuff is just nauseating. I suppose that the gender stereotyping starts right from birth. Our girls have a right to all the colours of the rainbow – if it means getting them to paint their stuff in colours of their choice, getting stuff tailored and customised for them, then so be it. Our twins are not dependent on any colour for the identity of their gender.

Barbie: Girls play with dolls and boys play with cars, girls play with kitchen sets and boys play with blocks. O +ve and B +ve love playing with all 4 mentioned above and more. They have of course been gifted Barbies, which lie wrapped up in the cupboard somewhere, with the wife certain that she is not going to gift them to any other girl either. #NoBarbieForMyGirls.

Lays: No Lays, No Pringles, No Cheetos and No Kurkure. No Soft drinks, no canned fruit juices either. The twins thrive on homemade snacks and resort to packaged biscuits, candies, chocolates and ice creams occasionally. They love their sugarcane juice and lemon juice – fresh.

Smartphone: I have never used one, my wife has got two. The girls have been told that they are free to use their father’s phone, but not their mother’s, and somehow they seem to be at peace with this rule. So, they speak to their grandparents and extended family, all on a feature phone. They are well aware that one can watch videos and video call on the smartphone, but they have never shown any interest whatsoever in picking up the smartphone. So far so good.

Friends: This is an unintended one. Not going to a playschool, not having kids of their age in the apartment where we live, not having a park or a garden or any open public space nearby in a walking distance has led to this. We are still figuring out a way out of this on a daily basis.

Movies: Wife used to be a movie-buff but after being married to a person for 11 years, who cannot sit through a movie, she has lost interest. My kids have until now not been to a cinema hall to watch a movie. Friends and cousins cry foul, they strongly recommend that we should initiate the kids into this at a young age otherwise they will find it difficult to handle the sounds and lights at a later date. We don’t think the girls are missing out on anything significant in their life on this count. When they are old enough, they could decide for themselves.

Stay at home Mother: Girls are growing up seeing their father at home and their mother going to office daily. Till now, it has been fine as their socialization has been fairly limited. We are, however, not sure how they will respond once they figure out the general norm in other families, as they grow up. And yes, they do want their mother to stay with them at home, on a continuous basis.

Malls: Have never really understood the concept of going to a mall for recreational purpose or for anything else. We do not go to malls – simply put; it is not a day well spent or so much awesome.

Not sure how these omissions from their life are going to impact them in the days to come – good/bad/somewhere in between?

What are the things that your child is growing up without?