Flimsiness

This a test post from my mobile phone. It got fragmented so I have combined multiple posts in one. Posting from mobile requires brevity.

I have this cooking range - stainless steel construction, nice sturdy looks. Yesterday the bottom drawer, where I store my kitchen linens, looked a bit askance. I pulled it out to fix it and find that the things that connect this sturdy drawer to the sturdy body are made of flimsy plastic which had broken off. This is a perfect stand-in for the state of affairs these days - a fancy exterior with a hollowness in all the important parts. I guess, if you need something that is solid through and through you gotta look in Germany!

Sunday School

"It is worthy of remark that a belief constantly inculcated during the early years of life, while the brain is impressible, appears to acquire almost the nature of an instinct; and the very essence of an instinct is that it is followed independently of reason," Charles Darwin wrote in "The Descent of Man."

Judith Warner quoted this in NY Times today and it once again got me thinking about religious education of my children. In my opinion a strong sense of one’s roots is important for growing up a mature adult. A tree with strong roots can stand up to strong winds, and may twist with the wind, but doesn’t easily lose its ground. This is illustrated very well by the Rumspringa tradition of the Amish. My children will have the freedom to rebel, but they do need to know what they are rebelling against. Just as, to be able to improvise in music, you first need to learn the classical form, if the girls choose to not be Hindus when they grow up, it should come from an understanding of the religion and not because they are embarrassed by the caricatures of it in the western media.

Herein lies my dilemma. Neither my husband nor I am overtly religious, and vary of committing our children to formal religious education. However, we are definitely spiritual and consider ourselves Hindus. That is to say that we do not take religious teachings literally but consider them abstractions or “storification” of concepts. I don’t believe that there is, in flesh and blood, a God of destruction, Shiva, who lives on a mountain in the Himalayas with his wife, the goddess of strength, and their son, the lord of auspicious beginnings. However, I do think that this is a way to explain the concept that whatever is created eventually dies, and post that destruction you need to partner with strength to create a new beginning.

I cannot deny that my religion is closely tied to my culture which I really value, and believe it is impossible to separate one form the other. Growing up Hindu in India, one doesn’t need to undergo formal religious instruction in the form of Sunday School to understand one’s religion. Hinduism is a way of life and is not tied to overt practices such as regularly visiting the temple or praying. My children are not growing up in that culture, and because we do not indulge in overt practices, they are growing up in ignorance of their roots which is unacceptable to me. I Think it might be time to enroll them in formal Hindu religious instruction. I might disagree with what they teach there, but at least it will help start a conversation about religion in the house.

Time to return to the bake sale?

Over the years my children have brought a constant stream of fund-raising materials from school, each with tactics to put emotional pressure on parents, and I have finally had it with this blackmail. I understand times are tough, our schools are losing money and we need to help. However, I do not appreciate our schools’ and PTO’s liaisons with the commercial vendors and their becoming a party to this.

I attended an assembly in my kids’ school once and somebody from a fund-raising company spoke at the assembly. The speaker exhorted kids to sell more and showed them all the goodies they could earn. I was aghast at this exploitation of our children. I would have been much happier giving $20 directly to the PTO instead of putting my kids through this and then buying $50 worth of cookie dough out of which the school got all of $10!

Our school had a picture session this Spring, in addition to the one in Fall. An order form came home which I did not sign and thought this meant that I was expressly declining my kids’ photos being taken. However, not only were their pictures taken but also sent home in their backpacks along with various photo-trinkets. I knew I was under no obligation to buy but I still had to endure constant begging from my kids and then repeatedly say no.

Then we had the Scholastic book fair, selling some books and lot of unnecessary trinkets. First, the kids were paraded through the book fair making a “wish list” to bring home. Then they were taken en-masse with their peers for a shopping trip to the fair. What parent can bear the thought of their child being the only one without any money to buy a ridiculous, large and unnecessary finger-pointer-thingy, when all her friends are buying one? I love books, I and my kids are avid readers and I even volunteer for the book fair but I really dislike the tactics used by Scholastic. Why don’t we just ask families to donate books for a used book sale? We would be teaching our kids to reuse in addition to buying wonderful books.

The last straw is an Art Gallery Event the school will be hosting. I have to Pony up $30 per child to have their artwork framed and displayed at this event. Do I want to once again be the parent who says no, and lets my child down in front of her peers? Our school used to have a similar albeit non-commercial event called the “Art Walk”, where students’ artwork was simply placed on construction paper and displayed in the hallways and parents gathered one evening to eat together and view the art. It was a wonderful event to bring the community together and I am sad to see it go.

Now I am the last person to let my child to succumb to peer pressure. However, I would like to choose to do this on my own terms and am quite offended by being repeatedly put in the position of the “bad person”, by my children’s school no less.

Alas, I do not have enough time to jump in a become the PTO president or even the fund-raising chair. I can share ideas and occasionally volunteer. Still I did write an email to the principal and the PTO today.