Christmas

I want to add a little clarification on why I feel I should scale down our Christmas celebrations. Growing up in India as a part of majority community, having never felt a threat to your way of life, you start feeling a benevolent attitude towards other religions and traditions. You embrace them, even encourage them in all your secular glory which is what I did. Dynamics of being a minority culture are totally different, however. You are surrounded by Christmas, you can't escape it even if you don't celebrate it yourself. Your kids will be writing letters to Santa and wanting a tree, even if you never mention Christmas in your house. But Christmas is not a secular holiday like Halloween - there is a distinct religious aspect to it. When my kids got old enough to start asking about the birth of Christ and why we weren't going to the church to celebrate it I was at a loss. I am not religious, but I am still a Hindu. To this add the fact that your own holidays, that you took for granted are pretty much non-existent in your kids' minds and you have to go through huge effort to celebrate them, and you quickly realize that Diwali will lose out to Christmas in the US anyway, you do not need to aid in the process by celebrating Christmas.

Assimilated yet Indian? Part II

Continuing on this issue and hoping to help other Indian parents learn from my mistakes, here is a post on what I feel is another important aspect of helping your children understand and identify with their roots - traditions.

Have you noticed books such as "The New Family Traditions handbooks" in book stores? Books teaching people how to make up traditions. You must have heard many Americans talk about their family traditions for Thanksgiving or Christmas. All this is because traditions or rituals are very important in keeping us connected and grounded. Often people make up traditions because they have long lost connection with their roots. Any parenting book will tell you that children thrive on routine. They like to know what to to expect, what happens next. This is where traditions fit in. Not only do they help kids understand what to expect, say, at mealtime or on a holiday, but they also often add a "ritual" to a daily mundane task such as mealtime. Traditions also help provide a sense of belonging in the family or heritage. My children taught me the importance of traditions by begging me for them. When my daughter declared that she wanted us to say grace at dinnertime I knew I better establish some traditions of our own soon!

Being Indian we don't need to make traditions up - we already have tons of stuff to choose from. So pick a few and stick to them. Regularity is important so do stuff that you like, think is important and enjoy. Over time I have started adding a few traditions to our life, mostly picking from things that I treasured as a child and my kids seem to like it. Here I will talk about a few things I do. I am a North Indian and hence the focus on Diwali and Holi.

As a child I loved to memorize poems and since it is a good mental exercise (God knows I need it!), I set myself the task of memorizing the Hanuman Chalisa. I have always liked the rhythm in Tulsidas's writing and I thought I already knew part of it, so it was a fairly low fruit to pick. After I tuck my kids in bed and turn off the lights, I sing them verses of Hanuman Chalisa. The plan was to add a verse a week, but I don't seem to get past verse 23, pathetic I know, but singing of Hanuman Chalisa at bedtime has become a tradition, even more so when I told my kids about the presumed power of Hanuman Chalisa in chasing away ghosts and monsters! I swear, I can use all the help I can get against those fiends under the bed. It helps that Hanuman is supposed to be the protective deity of my clan, and kids love stories about Hanuman - the original superhero, so I have a platform to build upon.

It is sad that my kids find Christmas much more interesting than any Indian holiday. I got all caught up in the Christmas fever during my early years in the US, so I haven't helped the matter much because we do put up a tree, hang stockings and kids get tons of presents. Of course, there is all the marketing around the time so it is pretty hard not to get caught up. I feel I shouldn't have gone so overboard with it earlier because if I try to scale it down now it will border on cruelty towards my children! My only other option was to add some more interest to Diwali. I refuse to corrupt Diwali with addition of presents but I do make sure that kids get and wear new clothes for Diwali. I take the day off on Diwali and keep kids home from school as well. I buy sparklers etc. during 4th of July and save them for Diwali. We also make Gulab Jamuns and rangoli together. I usually host a party with other Indian friends on a weekend right after Diwali, and do make an effort to decorate the house with candles and lights (that I leave on until after new year). If you have some friends or family close by, then you can formalize this a bit more. You could make a pact to get together on every Diwali, but rotate houses every year. The dinner can be potluck so no one person is stuck with all the work.

I do something for Holi as well. Definitely gulal and new clothes, and sometimes a party. Both I and my husband have lived in Gujarat so we try to make it to at least one night of dandiya during Navratri. I and my girls send rakhis to our male cousins, and I do make sure the girls are involved in the process and it is not just me sending rakhi off on their behalf. I even fast without water on Karvachauth, something many of my feminist friends frown upon. I view this as the holiday that celebrates family. When I was a child my family never had more focus and cooperation, than on Karvachauth where our sole goal was to keep my mother comfortable and sight the moon as early as we could. In my mind this has always been an important holiday.

I am also a big fan of some basic Indian values such a respecting elders. I have always touched feet when greeting my elders. I continue to do that and teach my kids this as well. I never say anything bad about our family elders in front of my children, and do all my bitching in private. I always cover my head on the rare occasion I go to a temple or pray to a deity, and teach my kids to do this as well. If they participate in a puja, I teach them the right way to sit, apply tikka, accept prasad and do not allow them to be insolent and ignore these basic rituals just because they are children.

I am still looking for some daily or weekly ritual to add to the mix, but need to find something that agrees with my spiritual beliefs otherwise I won't be able to keep it up.

Assimilated yet Indian?

A friend recently asked me this
"I wanted to ask you whether/how you deal with raising Indian children in America? I find myself constantly wondering which parts of my Indian culture I should work hard to expose my child to and which ones I can let go. It is hard especially because I find that I do not cleanly subscribe to any one group.... not orthodox, not extraordinarily religious, not vegetarian, not this, not that..... etc... etc....."

She has very succinctly described the dilemma most of us so called "modern Indian" English speaking professionally employed parents face in this country. Those who were never quite religious or traditional in their youth, and assimilated easily into the American society when single. Then our children came along and we suddenly realized that what a loss it would be for our children if they did not understand or respect their heritage. The question comes back to balance - how do we raise children who feel part of the society we live in, and yet are proud and aware of their roots? I wouldn't say I have done a very good job in this direction, but I have definitely learned from the mistakes I have made with my children. As with most parenting issues much wisdom is gained in hindsight.

This issue is too multi-faceted to be dealt with in one post. Here I will focus on what I believe is the most important thing, and one that must be worked upon right from infancy - Language.

Because we are fluent in our native tongue, we forget how intricately our culture and tradition is tied to our language. Our native tongue is the most important connection to our culture that our children can have and by teaching them our native language we maintain that link.

Imagine a typical scene when visiting our extended families - aunts, uncles and cousins, sitting together laughing, joking, teasing, bitching, gossiping. With my family most of it happens in Hindi. A child who doesn't understand Hindi would feel like an alien in this atmosphere. If they understand they will know what is going on, if they speak they can participate and feel like a part of the family. Nobody ever sat us down and gave us a lesson on culture and tradition. What we learned was picked up along the way during family gatherings and celebrations. Family is, after all, the foremost link to tradition and culture. If our children are fluent in our native language, they can communicate with grandparents and other family members. Some of my family who understand English, still find it hard to understand the American-accented-double-speed English that my children speak. If my children could not speak Hindi, their grandparents would soon become alien to them and they will lose a strong link to their heritage.

Not knowing our native tongue also deprives our children of the vocabulary to understand many traditions. How would you express the difference between "tilak, teeka and bindi", for instance, in English? Yet, each of these methods of marking the forehead are part of a unique ritual, and used in different circumstances. The word "saawan" evokes images of beauty, greenery and festivities. And yet tranlated into "rainy season", it means something quite the opposite. There are many such sayings, phrases, ways of describing things that are unique to our native tongues that simply cannot be translated. This subtlety is lost with the loss of the native language.

Language also happens to be one thing that, if not taught early, is easily lost and hard to teach again. The softer sounds are also hard to learn as one gets older. Hence, the first thing we can do, right from birth, is to make sure that our children are exposed to their native language. We all know that teaching multiple languages to a child helps a great deal with brain development. Many parents buy videos and such to expose their kids to a second language from early childhood. We don't have to, we already have the skill.

Can this be done? Absolutely. I know because I tried, succeeded only partially and know where I failed. I have seen American-born children of German parents speak fluent German. I believe the only way to teach your child your native language is to speak that language with the child exclusively. I cannot stress this enough - exclusively. A French speaker doesn't shy away from speaking French with her child in public. Why should you be embarrassed about Hindi or Telugu? English, your children will pick up in no time once they start daycare. If you are concerned let one parent speak English, but one parent must stick exclusively to the native tongue right from birth. Did I say exclusively!? When you teach them names of animals, or things do so in your native tongue. This takes some extra effort because English comes too damn naturally to us and we slip into it without realizing. Children, like all humans, are lazy. The instant they realize that English works with mom, they will stop speaking Hindi. And you can't make them speak in your native language. If you force them there will be no joy in the process. It is you who has to make the effort.

I spoke Hindi exclusively with my first child and she was speaking fluent Hindi at age two. Then I faltered somewhere after my second one was born. It is still not a total loss. My older one doesn't speak Hindi at home but she does speak fluently with grandparents. The younger one, however, doesn't speak Hindi very well but when she sees her sister relating with grandparents, she tries, and she is getting better. She does understand it quite well. I switched back to speaking with the kids in Hindi a couple of years ago. My feeling is that if I had stuck with the program, both my kids would be fluent speakers. Whenever my children visit with extended family, I insist that the family members speak in Hindi with my children. On our extended visits to India the kids get a lot of practice and slip back into Hindi within a few days.

That is my take on this. Language is of foremost importance. I will come to traditions, festivities etc in another post.

What makes a perfect parent?

I haven't posted in a while, I know. First I was in India and that trip got extended because my dad got sick. Then I myself ended up with Shingles - something I wouldn't even wish on my enemy. I am finally sort of back to normal and my schedule falling into place.

I came across this article titled "What make a perfect parent" via a friend's blog. Needless to say given how much I fret over parenting decisions, the article really appealed to me. I have read Freakonomics, the book mentioned in the article, so most of the information in the article wasn't new.

The statement that I found the most insightful was a quote in the article from Dr Gordon Livingston that goes thus
"Our primary task as parents, beyond attending to the day-to-day physical and emotional welfare of our children is to convey to them a sense of the world as an imperfect place in which it is possible nevertheless to be happy."

Having analyzed many parenting strategies and ideas to the point that I feel I can no longer read any more books about how to raise children, I have come to the conclusion that besides things that Levitt lists in Freakonomics (genes, educated parents, etc.) there are only two other things we parents can do to raise well-balanced individuals.

One is to stop sweating the small stuff and make time to share moments of joy as a family. This is something I reckon I forgot a long time ago and am glad to be reminded of again. While fretting about day to day schedules, making sure kids eat right, go to bed on time, wear clean clothes and live in a clean house I forgot completely about being happy. I hate the quote "a happy mother makes a happy child" because I have seen many mothers use that as an excuse to do things that are definitely not for the best of the child. Does it really matter in the long run if our clean laundry is sitting in a basket or in a drawer? But it really seems to matter to my kids that the entire family walks to school everyday.

Second is showing your kids you truly love them and delight in their presence and company, even when they are misbehaving. This is something I learned from the book "Hold on to your child" by Dr. Gordon Neufeld. Bonding, you know. It doesn't happen automatically and often gets lost in the craziness of daily life. I have made a deliberate effort in this direction in the past few months because I am embarrassed to admit that I had forgotten this as well. I have seen a distinct improvement in behavior, eating and sleeping patterns of my children. Much better results than those I was getting through any kind of discipline or sleeping-through-the-night strategy, and in a much more pleasant way for all involved. This despite the fact that I am now very inconsistent with my discipline strategies.

I have seen many parents, including mine, use all kinds of parenting strategies, and I can't say which strategy works consistently. What does stay consistent is that most successful parents seem to share a bond with their child and seem to be at peace with their own lives.