Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Looking for love

I have always believed that true love, the kind that endures is very boring. There are moments of magic, and bliss but they come with struggles and arguments. However, more than that it really has to do with persevering through daily minutia, chores and other ordinary things that compose our lives.

Of course, in movies and stories love is like a bright burning fire, with lots of fireworks and flowers, which of course love can be, but not all of the time. If that is what one bases their idea love and marriage on, one is doomed to never find happiness.

I have a feeling lot of people in the present society have grown up with the an image of love projected by movies, and that is why even people such as Oprah are suckers for stories such as the one told in the book Angel at the Fence, which has now been proven to be a complete fabrication. It is very sad and bewildering to me that people so badly want to believe that such a love story existed in real life, when it clearly seems so far fetched.

In general, real life provides a good counterbalance to the lives in fiction. You see what you may view as perfection, in books and movies, and then you see lots of real lives around you, and you can form a good sense of reality. In there lies my concern for my children. In our increasingly isolated lives, where we only meet people for a few carefully planned hours, children do not get a glimpse of real life. As a child, I spent lots of time around various family members and learned lot about real life from them. We are so far away from all our family, however, that my children don't spend much time with them either. They basically have two points of view - the marriage of their parents and the storybook romances. As my girls grow and, God forbid, start to read romance novels, I am afraid that their perception of love and romance will get completely skewed without any dose of reality to temper the image. Thus I feel it is my responsibility to seek out books or movies with many different views of love. Therein lies my dilemma - the realistic ones are too adult-oriented with nudity and profanity, and the ones suitable for kids are too candy coated. Any suggestions?

Monday, December 29, 2008

Beetroot greens

Here is a recipe inspired by my recent trip to India, and my newly frugal mood on account of the economy. Growing up in India, no food was ever wasted. Every part of a vegetable that could be used was used and there was always a stray cow to eat what was unusable. I recently wanted to make a beetroot salad and hence bought some beets at the supermarket. These beets came with the complete top attached - a nice set of leaves and red stalks, and I couldn't get myself to throw them away and devised this recipe.

Being an old school Indian cook, I remind you don't have to measure out the ingredients exactly. Feel free to vary according to taste. Since this is meant to be scooped with a flat bread and not as a salad, I do cook the stalks to be fairly soft.

Leaves and Stalks from 6 beetroots, finely chopped
Half a red onion, finely chopped
2 Tbsp olive or other cooking oil
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
Juice of half a lime (about 1 tbsp)
2 tablespoon chopped cilantro (optional)

Place the oil in a shallow frying pan on med heat. Add the onions and saute them until they are soft and translucent. Add rest of the ingredients except for the lime juice. Stir to mix. Lower heat to med low, cover the pan tightly to let the stalks cook in their own steam. After about 5-7 minutes uncover the pot. By now the stalks should be soft and the leaves wilted. Raise the heat to med high and cook away all the liquid while stirring the vegetable around so that it does not catch or burn. Take off heat and mix in the lime juice. I like to sprinkle the cilantro just before serving to add a splash of green to the red stalks. If you add it too early it will turn red as well!

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

A heartbreaking realization

I was in India for the past few weeks, and had a heartbreaking realization. I find that I can no longer trust the food, water and the air in India. It is shocking that a country rearing to attain a position among the world's most powerful nations cannot guarantee these basic necessities. There seems to be nothing in place to ensure that the food and water supply is not tainted with pollutants. Even if there is such a government agency, it cannot be trusted because of corruption.

Let us talk of water. All rivers are polluted by industrial waste, including heavy metals, as well as raw sewage. It is illegal to dump these things in the rivers but I doubt that is stopping anybody. Heavy metals can cause severe damage to human body, esp to babies and fetuses. In the US most pregnant women are advised to avoid fish because they can contain heavy concentrations of mercury. In West Bengal people love to eat fish from the Ganga river almost everyday. It is even believed that eating fish in pregnancy is really good because it boosts the brain of the unborn child. But what if your fish is laden with lead and mercury? If you remember the "pesticide tainted Coca Cola" scandal in India, the problem was not that somebody was adding pesticides to Coke but rather that the groundwater used to make Coke contained pesticides. If that is the case, can you even trust bottled water?

Talking of the food supply, and I am not talking of the hygiene standards of roadside food but of the raw materials themselves. Most of the vegetables that my parents buy are grown on the shores and dried up banks of the Ganga river - one of the most polluted rivers in India. In addition to that there are stories of the vendors injecting various chemicals into the vegetables to make their color or form more appealing. You can buy pasteurized milk, but do you even know what chemicals the cow was fed to increase the milk supply?

Food contamination is a problem in the US too - I am still a little vary of packaged Spinach. However, we know there are controls in place and those controls work. For most foods, you can trust the packaging as the ingredients are truthfully listed. You know which milk has added hormones and which does not. You have the information needed to make a choice as opposed to being blind-sided with no recourse.

I am truly heart broken at this thought.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Finally a Food Procesor I actually use

Although, I wouldn't call myself a gourmet, I do cook and enjoy good food. I am hoping to share more of my love of cooking, and challenges of feeding an Indian husband and American kids.

So I really loved this old food processor I had - it did everything I needed a food processor for, albeit noisily. It was cumbersome to use, consequently I used the shredder and slicer much less often than I liked to and usually had to consult the manual to get the shredding blade to work right. Then suddenly, it died and after kneading flour by hand for two days, I was in the market for a food processor. I asked some Indian friends and, god bless their patriotic heart, but they still don't think anything is better than a Sumeet. I was not too keen on a Sumeet. For one it comes with too many blades and parts, and I am seriously strapped for storage. Secondly, from my past experience I knew I won't use a machine that requires me to change parts often. I wanted something sleeker and given that I never grind dal for dosa or dahi vada, I did not need something that heavy-duty.

After a little more research I settled on a Cuiniart food processor which I bought at Costco. I have been using it for over a month and I am very happy with it. The best part about it is that for most of my daily prep work -chopping, kneading and pureeing, I don't even have to change blades. There is a special kneading blade for larger amounts of flour, but for our daily rotis I need only a couple of cups of flour. I have to change blades for grating and slicing but nothing else - the same base works for everything. The machine is also fast and quiet. It kneads dough in about 2 minutes. I have also used it for pie crusts, for making quick breads such as banana bread, pizza dough, for grating cheese and carrots, for mincing onions and slicing potatoes, for making chutneys and pesto, and for pureeing tomatoes and onions for sauces. I use it a lot more than my old food processor because it is so convenient to use, and because it doesn't take up much room, I can have it sitting on the counter. All parts are dishwasher safe (top rack) although I still wash them with hand.

The only thing I have been disappointed with is that I cannot use it blend a large amount of liquid to, say, make a milkshake. Although the container capacity is 11 cups, the amount of liquid you can add in it is much less. However, I realize that I rarely do that. Usually I make smoothies for my kids and that is just a glass or two. I had to make punch for a party once. I ended up pureeing the fruits with a little liquid in food processor, and mixed in the rest of the liquid with the puree in a separate pitcher. It turned out fine.

If you are in the market for a food processor, I would recommend it.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Jhumpa Lahiri

I am on my second book by Lahiri, and am struck by how depressing her books are. Unaccustomed Earth is a collection of short stories, so we get to see many of her characters and they all seem to be living these sad, hopeless lives, with no joy in them. The immigrant parents inevitably have an arranged marriage with no bond between them, the mothers always cooking and the fathers busy with their jobs, clinging by a frayed thread to their roots in India. The children spend their lives in misery, straddling the two worlds. Nobody seems to have a purpose or any kind of optimism. Being an immigrant myself, this really bites. I have enough perspective to see that my life is not necessarily like the parents of most of Lahiri's characters. It just might be because I am from a different generation than what her own parents might have been from. It is obvious that her characters have all come out of her own life - is that really the shared story of first generation Indian Americans? Are my children doomed to lead such hopeless, torn, divided lives - trying to break free from their parents, yet never quite assimilating into the life in the US? I am thinking of abandoing the book, because I have been completely depressed since I started reading it.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Historic day, historic moment

New York Times said today "An American with the name Barack Hussein Obama, the son of a white woman and a black man he barely knew, raised by his grandparents far outside the stream of American power and wealth, has been elected the 44th president of the United States."

Not just that, but a decent intelligent man, who ran with a simple idea that he believes in. A man who reached the highest office in the country, purely on his own merit, and by sticking to his beliefs without bending with the political winds. His opponents may say that I give him too much credit, and of course, time will only tell, but I truly believe that this is the first time in my life I am seeing a leader who has principles that he believes in and who will stand by those principles. Before this election season, I used to think that John McCain was that person but he proved us wrong.

Today, I can tell my daughters with conviction that, indeed, there is no limits to what you can achieve in this country. As any immigrant I keep tallying pro and cons of continuing to live in the US . Today, the pro column got many many points!

Monday, November 3, 2008

As festive as I wanna be

Each year I bemoan that Indian holidays come and go, without much fanfare. On Diwali, the stores are decorated with scary Halloween stuff, if anything, and there is no sign in the air that Diwali is even around the corner. Not being religious, we rarely go to the temple, consequently we are not very well connected with the local Indian community. As kids grow, I am afraid about losing traditions and they are indeed growing up very fast.

This year I went out and made an extra effort. I took half the day off on Diwali, and nagged my husband to hang lights on the house. I made mithai and festive food, decorated the house, got dressed up and ensured that the kids dressed up in new clothes, and lo and behold Diwali day felt quite festive to me! Over the weekend, we invited a few friends, had good food, danced, gambled a bit, and it felt even more festive. OK, so it took a lot of extra effort and I am still doing dishes from the party but it really felt like a holiday this year. My lesson in this very Gandhian - Self-reliance. My current environment isn't supporting it but with a little effort Hindu holidays can be as festive as I want them to be. I feel all aglow! I am sure you are wondering why it took me this long to figure something this simple out.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

More Milestones

We achieved some more milestones

The girls no longer want me to read to them at bedtime. This wasn't a sudden move but rather started with one of them wanting to finish whatever she was reading earlier, instead of listening to what I was reading, and then slowly transitioned into both of them reading their own books. We still read together for half and hour before bed, but the difference is that we each read our own books. This day had to come but I feel a certain twinge of loss.

The girls are going to school on their own consistently. It has become matter-of-fact - a peck on my cheek, an airy "bye mom" and they ride off on their bikes. I no longer follow them five minutes later. Here again my instinct is to go with them but I think it is a necessary step in independence. I have to really hold myself back.

They are both finally sleeping through the night. Finally! One has always been a poor sleeper and we have tried to teach her good sleeping habits at various stages of life. Invariably she ended up in our bed at night which was fine until a couple of years ago. Now that they are older, our bed is not big enough to accommodate the whole family. If the kids came in bed, either I or my husband had to find another spot to sleep. We made another attempt to get the kids to stay in their beds and surprisingly not only did it work, it was a fairly painless process for all of us. Phew.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Lies in politics

I have been debating whether to discuss the American presidential election here as I meant to write about parenting issue. I have decided to go ahead because that is what is on my mind these days, and the politics does affect my children's future.

I know politicians lie, and exaggerate and mislead people to make themselves look good. I am however very surprised that they can get away with such white lies in America. There is a whole army of internet vigilante digging up facts, there are multiple cable news channels and newspapers who one thinks can focus on the issues and really dig deep. It doesn't seem to be happening, however. Is this because most news organizations are for-profit companies and fear losing their audience if they got too controversial. It is surprising that the toughest questions in this election are being asked by comedians such as Jon Stewart and Joy Behar? Why is it that when a candidate has clearly lied, a news anchor doesn't just say to them "Why did you lie about this?" instead they say "Some people believe that you are not being completely correct when you say such and such."

It completely amazes me that the party supporting a man born into a career naval family, who got into the naval academy on that merit, married to a heiress who owns eight houses can happily paint another man raised in middle-class environment by a single mother, who went to Harvard on his own merit, as an elite and not only get away with it but have people believe them. When I mentioned this to some people, they said this is because Americans do not want a college educated liberal running the country. And that is why they elected a guy from a wealthy family, who needed help to get into Yale as their president, twice, just because he appears "folksy"? Reality does not matter, only appearances do? Isn't this ironic that the party that claims to be fiscally responsible chooses as its VP candidate who was very incompetent in running the state she was the governor of?

I thought living in a developed country, with transparency in government, meant living among informed enlightened people who didn't get swayed by such fluff. Having grown up in a "developing" country, I have seen completely uneducated politicians get elected but I have never seen this level of distrust of education as I see in America. It is very strange and hard to fathom.

Monday, September 15, 2008

What explains American politics

I have been hear all these years an still cannot fathom American politics. Why is abortion such a big issue in choosing a president? I swear I have seen more relevant issues being discussed more intelligently in the political environs of so-called developing countries. Why is "Creationism" even brought up in the world's most developed country? Only in America, will people actually vote against somebody because he appears to be smart, thoughtful and articulate.

The only explanation I find is a quote I have mentioned on this blog before. "An immigrant's values stay frozen in the era they left their home country". America was founded by immigrants, poor religious people, who wanted to get away from the elite of their home countries and practice the conservative form of their religion. They are still stuck with their anti-elite, "our religion is under attack" and "a man has to be judged by the size of his balls" values that they came with.

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Once, the movie

I enjoyed the film Once and love the soundtrack. I have it on my iPod and since I often play it in the car my daughters enjoy the music too. The other day they asked me that if they could see the movie as well and I am still debating if I should show it to them.

On one hand it could be a very simple decision; the film is rated R because there is a lot of swearing in normal conversations, not the obligatory kind that happens in some Hollywood action films. The story of the film is based in Dublin. There was this other beautiful Irish film I saw which was rated R too because of all the swearing. Do Irish people really swear that much!? Normally I am extremely uncomfortable with swearing. "Shit" is the worst I can do. I can't even hear anything worse than that but somehow Irish swearing doesn't bother me as much.

On the other hand it is a very beautiful film. The romance between the main characters is very simple, realistic and sweet. Unlike most Hollywood movies, even the movies directed towards teens and most music these days, sex isn't portrayed as the be all and end all of the romance. It isn't that big kiss that finally tells you "he loves you", but it is lot of little events and encounters. There is a very awkward attempt at sex in the movies but it doesn't get very far. I think it will be good for my girls to be exposed to this kind of stuff as I doubt they are going to encounter many realistic romances in their lives. I do not want them to grow up with the ridiculous idea of love that pop culture sells these days where love and sex are impossible to distinguish from each other, and there are no conflicts in love.

Friday, August 22, 2008

Balance

I want my kids to attain all their potential. To that end, I know I need to set high expectations, ensuring they get challenged enough to meet them. On the other hand I have got my mothering instincts wanting to hold their hands, and provide them comfort and encouragement. I find it is very hard to attain a balance between the two. Things get even harder because I believe the point of equilibrium is constantly shifting with the kids ages and abilities. Setting expectations is one thing but at what point am I helping too much, protecting too much and not giving them independence to fail? This often gets clouded.

We have a two story house, and for some reason both my girls have been scared to go upstairs by themselves. After a while it seemed like even if I was upstairs with them, they were scared to go to another room by themselves at night. Then they were scared to sit in the car for a few minutes by themselves, while it was parked in the driveway. If I had to run in to grab my purse, they would come running after me. This was followed by fear to go into the garage alone to fetch something. I had been away from them for over a month, so initially I chalked it up to separation anxiety. I tried to be supportive and comforting by not leaving them alone and accompanying them if they were scared. Two months down the line, it seemed like either their fear was feeding itself or the fear had just become a device to get my attention. Either way it was getting annoying as hell! Finally I declared that I find it ridiculous that they are scared to go from one point to another in their own house and I am done escorting them. This doesn't seemed to have improved things - they now try to get each other to accompany them upstairs. Now I wonder if I swung to the other extreme by completely dismissing their fears,.

Another example, the girls will often declare they are putting up a dance show, give us and then I have to sit and watch 10 minutes worth of twirling, leaping etc. These performances are completely unrehearsed, so they will do a thing or two then stand and think, or argue, about what to do next and then do a couple other things. In the past I dutifully sit through, praise what I like and clap. The performances are getting boring though so at the last show I declared, "if you expect somebody to sit and watch you for 15 minutes, then you need to put more effort in the show. Next time I expect better planning and some advance rehearsals." Did I raise the bar or crush their spirits? I don't know.

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Review: Reviving Ophelia

I was hoping to write a review after I was finished with the book, but I am finding it very difficult to read the book so I might as well just write why it is a difficult book to read.

The problems with teenage girls that the author talks about are disturbing and in some way I am glad that I am aware of them so hopefully with my daughters I will be better at spotting signs early. I, however, cannot help but wonder if the author's view of the world isn't completely skewed! She is, after all a therapist, and the girls she is seeing are the ones that have been brought into therapy. I don't think parents would take their kids to a psychotherapist unless the problems were severe, so a vast majority of girls she is interacting with have serious problems. The author talks about one teenage girl that she has seen outside therapy, I think her niece, who still seems 'normal' with a joy for life and then the author comments "I wonder how long this will last". In any case the world the author is talking is about does not seem like the world I live in. Somewhere she says that our perception of what constitutes family is all wrong because we think of family as mom staying home with kids and dad working. I was surprised to hear that because I know maybe one family like that, and know that in today's world that is an exception rather than the norm.

Secondly what I have read till now seems like a big rant against the culture and media - a lot of blame. There seems to be no structure to the book itself. The book is divided into chapters but I really see no difference between one chapter and the other. It is just one description after another of the same problem, and she has not presented any solutions yet, except maybe taking the kid to a therapist like herself.

So overall I am not finding the book enjoyable or useful, and doubt I will ever finish it because I have so many other interesting books to read.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

New astrology

As I was once again figuratively banging my head against a wall after another bout of "I'll say no to whatever mom suggests" with my 8 year old (What am I going to do when she is a teenager!!), I thought in my head that if I took her to a specialist she will definitely get diagnosed with Oppositional Defiance Disorder. And then I was struck with another thought from all my readings of Linda Goodman in my teens, that my daughter is an Aries; of course, she is going to butt heads with me.

Has this new wave of labeling people with all kinds of disorders the new astrology of our times? There was a time when we tried to find the clue to a person's personality and ways to works with it with their sun sign. Now we try to do the same by getting them labeled with some kind of "disorder". Does it matter what label we give them - Aries or ODD? Isn't what is more important in the end is how we work with the person and live harmoniously with them?

Monday, June 30, 2008

Too much stuff

I was away for a month for a family emergency (no, nobody died), with kids left in the care of their dad and grandma. On returning home I found all our worldly possessions - toys, books, clothes and the rest of it, that I had sorted, boxed and organized for years, out in the open, strewn on the floor, stacked in shelves, stuffed under tables and beds. I was horrified. I lost it for a few days and I think everyone including the kids were wondering whether I should have just stayed away!

On some reflection I realized that it is not anyone's fault that they could not keep things organized. The problem is that we just have too much stuff and I am convinced, more than ever, that I need to drastically reduce our possessions. I spend too much time taking care of "things" and not enough time caring for "people" and that is plain wrong. For the past year or so I have been extremely wary of buying anything that is going to sit around the house. I give it a lot of thought and only buy what we really, really need. This is not enough. I need to get more aggressive in reducing what we don't need - we need to come down to absolute minimum, and then slowly add high quality thing that we cherish and that last us a while.

I noticed that the only way my girls play with Legos and Lincoln logs is use them as food in their doll and animal games. We invariably end up with little bowls full of Legos and Lincoln Logs, often mixed up with other stuff and I have decided not to spend minute them. Yesterday I packed away Lincoln logs in a box to be donated, but couldn't get myself to get rid of the Legos. I put them in a "save for later" toy box. Does depriving my girls of Legos make me a bad mother?

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Paper paper everywhere

My kids like to work on paper, loose paper. We are always swimming in the stuff and it seems wasteful, not to mention hard to manage. For example, they were playing this game with some choices written on paper. I would have torn one sheet into pieces and written a choice on each piece. My kids use a whole sheet for each choice. I am horrified at the amount of paper we recycle each week. When I can I always encourage the kids to take a paper out of the recycle pile, and use the back. But I am not always watching. I have tried hiding our plain paper, tried a rationing system but it hasn't worked. For one, I am just tired of having to police the paper!

As kids we always did all our work in notebooks. I like that idea and I have tried to get my kids a ruled pad for writing and blank paper sketchpad for drawling. I have explained to them many times that how it is easier to save and preserve their work if it is a bound notebook, but it doesn't seem to sink in. Even with a notebook, they tear out a page if they want to work on it! Sometimes they use multiple papers to carry out an idea, then tear those pages out and staple them back together. It is completely insane!

On this trip back to India, kids in my family were on their summer vacation so I had ample opportunity to observer kids at play and amazingly all kids have a 2-3 that they write or draw in! So why is it that my kids only want to work on loose paper whereas the kids in India stick to notebooks?

I think the difference is in how the schools in each country operate. In India, all schoolwork is done in notebooks. That is how it was when I was young and that is how it is now. Kids have a notebook for each subject - mathematics, language, science etc. Sometimes there are separate ones for homework and schoolwork, but all the work for the school year is contained in a handful of notebooks. In the US, kids do most of their school work on loose sheets of paper. For example my daughter has to practice 10 spelling words each week. She has to do multiple exercises with the words every day of the week, and hand in the work every Friday. Here she gets her words on a sheet of paper on Monday, does each exercise on a blank sheet paper through the week, uses both sides only if I catch her and insist on it, staples the week's work and hands it in. I bet if the same exercise was being done in a school in India, there would be "spelling notebook" created early in the year, and the students would do all their exercises in that notebook and hand in the notebook every Friday. Hmm...maybe I should suggest this to the teacher.

Friday, May 30, 2008

Close to nature

I am in India these days and I am fascinated by how close to nature and cycles of nature life is here, even in heavily populated cities. "Being close to nature" doesn't imply taking a walk in the woods and hearing birds - that is much more easily and pleasantly accomplished in the US. What I mean is that here relatively small natural phenomenon affect daily life much more than in the US, where only something big like a hurricane affects daily life. Here is an example.

It is almost mango season here and when I got here trees were loaded with green mangoes, on the verge of ripening - tart and sweet. Then we had a week of flash storms - strong wind and rain lasting only for couple of hours or so every other day. Lots and lots of green mangoes fell from trees. The very next day after the storms the vegetable markets were full of many varieties of green mangoes being sold at throwaway prices and within a few days my mother, my aunts and our neighbors were busily preserving green mangoes in a variety of forms for rest of the year. Tarter varieties were sliced and dried in the sun to be used in dishes that need tartness. The chunkier tart mangoes were pickled in oils and spices. The sweeter varieties were made into chutneys and sweet pickles. I had no idea so many things could be made with green mangoes!

Another example is how well people know when the season of a fruit or vegetable is, almost down to the week of the month. It is very common to hear "Oh you want to eat Dussehri mango. You are leaving on the 5th? It is close. They usually start coming to the market around 10th." or "If you had come two weeks ago you could have had wonderful radishes. Now they are bitter and no good."

I cannot imagine this happening in the US. Yes, we hear of a crop being spoiled but it never ever changes the selection in the grocery store. Store selection is not much affected by the season either except for maybe berries. After having lived in the states for 15 years, I still don't know when certain fruits and vegetables are at their prime. Of course there is the berry-picking season and apple-picking season, but when is the cauliflower-picking season? I should start visiting farmer's markets more often.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Milestones

When our kids are little we track all the little milestones - the first solid food, the first word, the first step. As they got older I stopped paying attention to milestones and hence I thought I'd record the milestones my older kids have reached this year as they turned 6 and 8.
  1. My older one started talking to her friends on the phone. Doesn't do a lot but seems comfortable with calling up people she wants to talk to
  2. My younger one learned to tie her shoelaces. I bought her shoes with laces, quite accidentally, and she became a pro at it in two weeks. I have never bought my older one tie-up shoes and so she still can't do laces.
  3. My older one has gotten more conscious about dressing/undressing in front of others. She also becoming more aware of her body.
  4. Older one has started doing a little cooking. She makes very nice chocolate muffins from a recipe she got on a Barbie website, I think, and needs almost no help during the process. She can also make herself a scrambled egg with some help.
  5. The girls walked to school on their own. OK so they did it once and didn't want to again. They come home from school by themselves too. I go to pick them up and then stand around chatting to other moms. They take the keys and leave, and reach home 5-10 minutes before I do. It is still something that would not have happened last year.
What about your kids? Have they reached any such noticeable milestones?

Monday, April 28, 2008

Hannah Montana

Hannah Montanna's appeal is evident by the fact that in spite of having never seen the show on TV my 8 year old has a poster of the fictional pop star in her room and had a Hannah Montana cake for her birthday. After the Jamie Lynn Spears pregnancy, Miley Cyrus got elevated to some kind of a perfect-wholesome-teenagers status with articles about her faith in God and her excellent upbringing under strict rules etc. in every magazine. Hence, it was inevitable that some horrible photo or article would emerge to pop that balloon. It happened this weekend.

Some provocative images of Miley Cyrus with her boyfriend circulated the net. I was however, more worried by the spread she posed for in Vanity Fair magazine. Apparently her parents were at the shoot, and it was the famed photographer Annie Leibovitz handling the camera. Everybody was quite aware the photo would make Miley appear nude, covered by a satin sheet. Miley was apparently clothed under the sheet, but does that really matter? From what I read everyone was on board with what the picture was going to look like, and everyone involved with the photo shoot, including Miley and Ms Liebovitz themselves, agreed that the photo would appear "artistic".

I am not stranger to art and yes nudes can be very artistic! What shocks me is the state of current culture that nobody batted an eyelid about a 15 year old kid appearing to be nude in a magazine spread - art or no art! Yes, it is "simple" and "beautiful" picture, but it is a girl in the picture not a grown woman. She is insanely famous, but Miley is still a kid, and although she did not do a Britney Spears style sexy-school-girl photo, in my mind that kind of pose is inappropriate for a young girl. Why would the photographer suggest it and why would her parents agree? Could it be that we have gotten so desensitized by the sexualization of everything that it never occurred to anybody that maybe it is not a very good idea to photograph a 15 year old, naked in bed with a sheet held up to her chest?

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Food shortage

You know there has been talk for some time that we are on the brink of some very bad times - global warming, food shortages, chemicals in everything etc etc. It has finally hit home when Sam's club decides to limit rice purchases. Things must be really bad if we are going to have food rationing in the USA!

Once things start getting expensive perhaps the overboard consumerism will stop. To my kids, living in this land of plenty, nothing is precious anymore. You buy them cupcakes and they complain about the color of the frosting! That has always felt wrong to me but I don't know what the solution is. To my kids food is this ubiquitous thing, available in any shape, size and taste you want, at any time you want and there is nothing special about it. They have no respect for food or its preciousness and I don't know how to teach them this important lesson. Do I make them lead a life of deprivation just to teach them life lessons? I truly believe that hardship in life is important to grow resilient, strong and grounded human beings but can I force hardship on my own kids. Probably not but then I fail in my duty as a mother, and therein lies my dilemma. I think I will make my kids change schools every two years -that ought to force some hardship!

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Independence

A recent article and subsequent discussion on a mailing list I am on, made me think about something much simpler. The article is about a parent letting their 9yo take the public transportation.

For me the much simpler topic was letting the kids drink out of a regular cup instead of a sippy-cup. I know that doesn't compare to letting a kid ride a subway alone but hear me out. As a parent there are a lot of things I do not let me children do because I think they are not ready for it. One such thing is letting them drink out of a regular cup unless they are at the table. My kids, aged 6 and 8, drink a cup of milk before going to bed. We always do this in their carpeted bedroom, sitting on their bed or the floor while reading books. They drink their milk from sippy-cups without the valves, because I am afraid they will spill the milk. On further thought I realized that I was approaching this all backwards. They aren't going to cross some magical age and suddenly have the skills to handle a regular cup. It is a skill they will learn only when they practice it, and if I don't let them, they'll never learn. Starting last week I am letting them both use a regular cup for their milk. Yes, they tend to tip it because they are engrossed in their book, but I am their to help and warn and we haven't had any spills yet. Even if we do, what is one little spill on the road to learning a new skill, eh?

Monday, March 31, 2008

Economics behind safety

In some ways US is one of the most safety-conscious nations. I am now getting used to it but when I was new in this country and on a holiday people said to me "Have a safe holiday" as opposed to a "happy holiday" or a "fun holiday", I used to find it very strange. I have always felt that the safety thing is often overdone, and it has purely been driven by companies not wanting to get sued.

Thus it was with much interest and sense of "A-Ha" that I recently read a chapter of the book Freakonomics. The author states that most of the safety issues become a lot more prominent, and you find all kinds of seemingly non-commercial promotion of those issues, as soon as there is a product to sell that keeps us or our kids "safer." For example, only a nominal number of lives are saved by car seats. Kids are definitely more safer in the backseat, as opposed to riding in the front seat on somebody's lap but beyond that car seats don't save that many lives. On the other hand, a lot more kids die by drowning in home swimming pools. Now there is no safety product to save kids from drowning - what you need is a watchful adult. So you see states rushing to pass laws to require car seats and booster seats, but the issue of water safety hasn't gained any traction over the years. Just wait until a company has some kind of device to sell that can prevent kids from drowning, and all of a sudden it will become a big issue and legislators will be passing laws to require its use.

I am one of the parents who insists my kids use a booster seat in the car, now that they have outgrown their car seats. The usage of car seat has been so instilled in our heads by the "experts" and studies, of them, I am sure, financed by the car seat companies, that going without a car seat seems very very wrong. My 7 year old has been resisting her booster of late because she sees her classmates riding without them, in the front seat no less, and here she is being required to sit in a booster. After this article I have been thinking that maybe I can let her go without a booster. I don't think she is getting to ride in the front seat anytime soon, though, because as it happens having kids in the backseat does keep them safer.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Color coded holidays

Today is St. Patricks' day holiday and once again I am reminded of Americans' curious way of color-coding all holidays. I am guessing it is an American thing, because it seems to be too bizarre to be, say, European culture. Every American holiday has a color associated with it - Christmas is red and green, Hanukkah is Blue and Silver, St. Patrick's day is green, etc. You can tell what holiday is approaching just by looking at the color of decor in a shop window. It is as if the Bible gives specs for the HSV value of the exact green to be used because the Christmas green is very different from the the ST. Patrick's day green! I am a Hindu and given our pantheon of Gods, we can celebrate a holiday almost every week of the year if we like, so I understand holiday symbols and icons but I don't get the colors. I am guessing the color-schemes were introduced and promoted by the marketplace to induce people to change their home decor and such with each approaching holiday, and sell more products as a result, but it is even more curious how whole-heartedly the colors have been embraced by everyone. It could be that because most American have long been removed from the native culture these holidays originated in, they do need specific colors and icons to celebrate the holiday. Just as unable to be completely submerged in the Diwali atmosphere, I chooses a few icons and rituals to celebrate it. To my kids Diwali probably means nothing more than those few icons, and will eventually celebrate Hindu holidays in the same way signified only by a certain color, food or icon.

Saturday, March 15, 2008

Cuteness

My hope for my girls is that they can go beyond physical appearance, and focus on something deeper. To that end I consciously make an effort to not talk about appearance, or about whether they are looking "cute". The media does enough to focus on appearance as it is.

However, I do want my girls to look nice - clean faces, neat hair and occasion-appropriate, clean, unfaded, somewhat coordinated, clothes. You know, the basics. If I am going out I do brush my hair and apply lipstick, but I never did that in front of the kids or drew their attention to it. Most days I just let them wear whatever they want.

Unfortunately this has backfired in the sense that my kids have no sense of appearance. As a mother I think it is my responsibility to teach them about grooming, but I am still not sure how best to approach it.

A few days ago we were going for dinner to a friend's house, I asked the kids to get dressed and one of mine shows up in her favorite faded sweatpants that she has grown out of so they ride up her ankles, hair sort of brushed but definitely needing pinning or something because she is growing out her bangs, and I knew in a few minutes she is going to have hair all over her face. The second one has a bit more clothing sense but what she was wearing was way too dressy, and also made her sister look even worse. sigh.

So finally I broke down and addresses the "cuteness" question. The girls put up a fight when asked to change, and I ended up saying "Don't you guys want to look cute!" There goes my whole not-focus-on-looks plan out the door. I reasoned some more "Don't I let you do whatever you want with your hair and clothes most days? When we are going out you have to wear what I say. I know much more about looking nice as I have been in the world for many more years than you." Then through many more arguments, negotiations and tears I managed to get the girls looking, I hate to say it, cute, and we finally arrived at the dinner party an hour late.

Later in the week I helped the kids pick out a few "going-out" outfits and had them put those separate from rest of the clothes, and off-limits for school. I also made the rule that when going out they have to take my advice - I give them a couple of choices and that is what they wear. Same goes for hair. They still put up a fight, but at least they look nice when we go out.

Since then we have had more talks about how people judge you on your appearance, and how that is not right but that is how the world is etc. All this doesn't sit right with me though, and I am still wondering if I could have handled this any differently.

Friday, March 7, 2008

Dinner conversation

Here are some recent dinner conversation at our house

DD 2: Where do babies come from?
Me: From mom's tummy.
DD 2: I know, but how do they come out of mom's tummy?
So I tell her where they come out from and her eyes widen in shock and amazement and then she responds..
DD 2: Can I choose to have my babies come out of my mouth instead?


Another day. We are eating pork chops, broccoli and pasta for dinner. The older one has just read a book with some stories about cats.
DD 1: I can't believe cats eat birds, the intestines and all the bird droppings in it. ew disgusting!
DD 2 (putting a piece of pork in her mouth and trying to say something to match the above statement): I can't believe we are eating something that came from a chicken. ew disgusting!
DD 1: From pigs, silly, pigs!
DD 2 (eyes wide in amazements) : What? Broccoli comes form pigs?!

I have imposed strict fines (deducted from their daily quota of screen-time) for infractions in table manners, also a reward if they can finish their meal with decent manners, so we have much less wriggling and jumping out of chairs every few minutes to fetch another spoon, and much more interesting conversations at dinner these days. Not sure if the above are appropriate for a meal-time but I'll take these over whining about food any day.

Friday, February 29, 2008

Disappointments

I was at child's birthday party and it was pretty standard. There were party games, some kid won but all kids got prizes so nobody got to feel special and nobody got hurt. In a way it is good that we are not instilling this winning and losing streak in little kids. I grew up in an ultra-competitive environment and I don't think that was healthy at all.

On the other hand I think that this "everybody wins" attitude is setting up our kids to never learn how to handle disappointment. As parents we need to teach our kids that bad things happen, we feel hurt but that is not the end of the world and life goes on. In real life, somebody, in fact, wins and somebody loses, and kids can learn that in birthday party games where the stakes are low, and the hurt small. Unless they go through little disappointments, they will never know how to handle them and also that this is a part of life.

Yesterday we got my daughter's favorite meal - McDonald's. After we got home we realized that a mistake was made in the order - not only did she not get a "girl" toy, they gave her the wrong food. She, of course, collapsed at the table crying and my first instinct was to say "let's go back and get this order sorted out." It wouldn't have been a big deal as we had no other plans that evening and not far to drive. Then I thought maybe here is a lesson to be learned - in checking your order and in learning to "make do". She cried, and that was very sad, but then she recovered and it wasn't so bad after all. Tough love, huh!

Thursday, January 31, 2008

I hate CNN

I don't watch TV and don't subscribe to newspapers preferring to get all my news online. Everyday I visit the websites of BBC news, New York times and CNN to see what is going on in the world. CNN's headlines are always about kids dying or being abused or being thrown of a bridge or something equally ghastly. It is horrible. At this very moment the headline at BBC is about a top al-Qaeda militant being killed and what is CNN leading with - Britney Spears' hospitalization! Oh I hate CNN. Wonder what people who watch CNN On TV think.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Gifts

Gift-giving and receiving is something that has been on my mind lately. For one, Christmas was not in so recent past and and secondly, my kids' birthdays are around the corner. It really irks me these days that people ask everybody, even little kids, what they want for a present. The kids describe what they want, down to the exact model and brand name and then get that exact thing for a present and everybody is happy. No awkward moments when a present is opened and we don't have to teach the kids about being gracious. Quick fix, instant gratification and life-lessons be damned. My kids are no exception. They believe that they have the right to tell everybody what they want and they will get it. It has now started bothering me enough to do something about it if all I am doing is ranting on my blog!

Presents are a privilege and not an entitlement. They are completely the gift-giver's prerogative. It, of course, behooves the gift-giver to put some thought into the matter and maybe try to know the receiver a little better. I think questions such as "what your interests are" are alright but that is where it should stop. By buying them the exact thing they want we adults deprive ourselves of an opportunity to broaden our kids' horizons, to show them something beyond their narrow field of vision. One of the best gifts my daughter ever received was a subscription to the Ladybug magazine. She did not even know the thing existed, and was disappointed when she saw that present because all she seemingly got was a card that said that she will be getting a magazine in the mail. That was three years ago. She still remembers that the subscription was a gift and looks forward to the magazine every month. Now that is what gift-giving is about. Why are we forgetting this and letting our kids hand us a shopping list before every Christmas and birthday. It doesn't smell right.