I have been watching the HBO/BBC series Rome. I did not study Roman history or culture in school so I am thoroughly enjoying it. I know a lot of it is drama and cannot be considered authentic history, but it does have some factual basis. Having studied Indian history in some detail, I am struck by how similar to Indian culture ancient Rome seems. Any number of ancient Indian kings, queens and gods could be seamlessly substituted in the stories and it would still ring true. For one there is the religion - the numerous gods, and the little altars in every home; the style of worship ranging from specialized-deities to the revenge-mandalas, seeking Gods to bless everything and the blood-rituals. Then there is the style of clothes and the decor. There is also the clear demarcation between the nobility and the "plebs" and the decadent luxury of the rich. And although current India is sexually-repressed, we know from ancient books and temple carvings that this is a fairly modern happening. The only difference is that the Roman culture ended after advent of Christianity, whereas the Indian one survived and kept evolving; kept incorporating ideas and rituals from all the invaders that came through. It is becoming even clearer why India has been referred to as a "continuous civilization".
All this has given rise to a storm of thoughts and I am sure I will be writing more posts about this.
Raising kids in a non-native environment while constantly worrying about striking the right balance.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Monday, October 12, 2009
The pledge
There has been an ongoing effort by atheists to remove the word God from the statement "one nation under God" in the pledge of allegiance. I think they have been going about it all wrong by stressing the separation of church and state. What they should use is "truth in advertising" laws and request that we replace the word "God" by "Media". That is what we are - one nation under media.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Karwachauth
Today is Karwachauth, the holiday when Hindu women fast until moonrise for the longevity of their husbands. In a certain sense the holiday is antiquated, anti-feminist and enforces the subservience of women in the Hindu culture especially if you read this op-ed in New York Times. I think even my grandfather waited for my grandma on Karwachauth, so the author's family seems to be in a whole different century altogether.
The question arises why do I, a seemingly modern progressive woman, continue to observe this holiday every year – going without food or water for an entire day to honor my husband. I used to ask myself this question through hunger pangs every year. Do I really believe the stories retold every year on this holiday about how bad fate befell a woman who unwittingly had a sip of water when mistaking a lamp in a tree for the moon, and hence breaking her fast before the scheduled time? I don’t think so. Do I think that the life of a woman without a husband is no life at all, and hence must continue to pray that I die before him? Umm no.
I have a deep respect for traditions, and I am wary of doing away with one too easily without first understanding its far-reaching roots. That was the reason I started observing this fast and a few others – simply because my mother used to. Most fasting holidays have a whole ceremony centered on breaking the fast. When the time comes, you don’t just fall upon the food but first have to go through a few rituals. Over time I have come to realize that this waiting for food, even when you are allowed to eat, takes the focus away from food on a fasting day and makes you mindful of why you were fasting in the first place. And so tonight, as I make my offerings to the moon, and go through the little rituals along with my husband before sitting down to have a meal, I will remember and honor the person I have decided to spend my life with, and be mindful of the ups and downs of the journey a marriage is. It being one of the most important relationships in our life, it is no surprise that the prescribed fast for it is one of the hardest. I am glad tradition forces me to set aside a day to reflect on this.
The question arises why do I, a seemingly modern progressive woman, continue to observe this holiday every year – going without food or water for an entire day to honor my husband. I used to ask myself this question through hunger pangs every year. Do I really believe the stories retold every year on this holiday about how bad fate befell a woman who unwittingly had a sip of water when mistaking a lamp in a tree for the moon, and hence breaking her fast before the scheduled time? I don’t think so. Do I think that the life of a woman without a husband is no life at all, and hence must continue to pray that I die before him? Umm no.
I have a deep respect for traditions, and I am wary of doing away with one too easily without first understanding its far-reaching roots. That was the reason I started observing this fast and a few others – simply because my mother used to. Most fasting holidays have a whole ceremony centered on breaking the fast. When the time comes, you don’t just fall upon the food but first have to go through a few rituals. Over time I have come to realize that this waiting for food, even when you are allowed to eat, takes the focus away from food on a fasting day and makes you mindful of why you were fasting in the first place. And so tonight, as I make my offerings to the moon, and go through the little rituals along with my husband before sitting down to have a meal, I will remember and honor the person I have decided to spend my life with, and be mindful of the ups and downs of the journey a marriage is. It being one of the most important relationships in our life, it is no surprise that the prescribed fast for it is one of the hardest. I am glad tradition forces me to set aside a day to reflect on this.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Fox News
This is not really related to parenting, but has been on my mind of late. It goes back to what I said in an older post that we seem to give the most attention to people who shout or otherwise behave badly. We mothers are guilty of giving more attention to the whiny, cranky child at the expense of the calm easy-going one. The squeaky wheel gets the oil, I know, and I am sure there is some survival-of-the-fittest theory behind it.
The same thing is now happening in the media. The nuts on Fox News such as Beck and Hannity, and the protesters they incite seem to be getting all the media attention. Other networks, congressmen, even the president seem compelled to respond to these idiots and their ridiculous biased rants. What this attention given to Fox results in is that whatever the wing-nuts decide to get mad about becomes the topic de jour in our national conversation. Fox News claims that more people watch Fox news than any other news on TV. They are probably right, but I also suspect that those who watch that network are the only people FOX has influence on. Everybody else is put off by them. David Brooks agreed with that in his op-ed today. I particulary like how Joe Gandelman framed it "Rage and attack mode are OK for those who already agree with you, but they don’t win over those who are pondering both sides and don’t like what they see on either of them." Judith Warner said something similar about Michael Moore in her op-ed as well.
People who don’t watch Fox News probably don’t get their news from TV anyway so they are not watching any other show either which explains Fox’s numbers. If you are sane enough to think Fox News is far from "Fair and Balanced", then I bet you are capable of thinking for yourself and you can easily see that CNN is equally ridiculous, and Olberman’s rants don’t sway you either. So here is my appeal to thinking people – can we ignore Fox News just as we would a tantrum-throwing child?
The same thing is now happening in the media. The nuts on Fox News such as Beck and Hannity, and the protesters they incite seem to be getting all the media attention. Other networks, congressmen, even the president seem compelled to respond to these idiots and their ridiculous biased rants. What this attention given to Fox results in is that whatever the wing-nuts decide to get mad about becomes the topic de jour in our national conversation. Fox News claims that more people watch Fox news than any other news on TV. They are probably right, but I also suspect that those who watch that network are the only people FOX has influence on. Everybody else is put off by them. David Brooks agreed with that in his op-ed today. I particulary like how Joe Gandelman framed it "Rage and attack mode are OK for those who already agree with you, but they don’t win over those who are pondering both sides and don’t like what they see on either of them." Judith Warner said something similar about Michael Moore in her op-ed as well.
People who don’t watch Fox News probably don’t get their news from TV anyway so they are not watching any other show either which explains Fox’s numbers. If you are sane enough to think Fox News is far from "Fair and Balanced", then I bet you are capable of thinking for yourself and you can easily see that CNN is equally ridiculous, and Olberman’s rants don’t sway you either. So here is my appeal to thinking people – can we ignore Fox News just as we would a tantrum-throwing child?
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Character and dignity
I came across this article and was reminded how much I admire dignity and character in a person. These are ephemeral qualities, hard to describe or measure, but easy to recognize. The question arises, can these qualities be cultivated? Can I do something now so that my children grow up to be dignified adults with character?
As suggested in the article, George Washington sought to change external habits to “shape inner morals”. Certain acts define graciousness or dignity, and a place to start would be to ensure my children always do them whether they want to or not; simple things such as greeting people, and saying proper goodbyes.
The other aspect of dignity is mysteriousness, or rather restraint in what personal information you reveal to others. In this age of Facebook, when all our friends are intent on telling us everything from what they ate for lunch to what Crayola Crayon they are, restraint seems like a much harder thing to teach kids to value. Add to that our pop-culture where the society is obsessed with the worst of people, and value of dignity becomes even harder to teach. After all, the people who acted insanely during the health-care reform town-hall meetings got to come on TV and express their opinions, whereas nobody noticed the people who asked reasonable questions.
The other problem the ubiquity of so called “real people”, with the help of TV and other media, creates the feeling that it is fine to behave in an undignified manner because others are doing it too. Milgram proved with his social experiments that people are capable of doing nasty things just because other people are doing them as well. The way current pop-culture is going, there are no good role models left for children. Maybe the thing to do is to actively cultivate friendship with the type of people that can be good role models for my kids. Then they can do what the “crowd” does.
As far as building character goes, a major contributing factor is hardship in childhood. In comfortable middle-class families like ours, hardship is hard to come by. What parent wants to deliberately put their kids through hardship? As a friend said, “it is crazy that you are worried about lack of lack”. The other ingredient for character seems to be strict discipline. Discipline is a hardship, in the sense that kids aren’t allowed to just do what they want. We parents however are overloaded with too much information about how to achieve discipline. Should the children be paid for doing chores? If punishing for bad behavior too negative, then isn’t rewarding for good behavior same as bribing? How much praise is too much?
What is a parent to do?
As suggested in the article, George Washington sought to change external habits to “shape inner morals”. Certain acts define graciousness or dignity, and a place to start would be to ensure my children always do them whether they want to or not; simple things such as greeting people, and saying proper goodbyes.
The other aspect of dignity is mysteriousness, or rather restraint in what personal information you reveal to others. In this age of Facebook, when all our friends are intent on telling us everything from what they ate for lunch to what Crayola Crayon they are, restraint seems like a much harder thing to teach kids to value. Add to that our pop-culture where the society is obsessed with the worst of people, and value of dignity becomes even harder to teach. After all, the people who acted insanely during the health-care reform town-hall meetings got to come on TV and express their opinions, whereas nobody noticed the people who asked reasonable questions.
The other problem the ubiquity of so called “real people”, with the help of TV and other media, creates the feeling that it is fine to behave in an undignified manner because others are doing it too. Milgram proved with his social experiments that people are capable of doing nasty things just because other people are doing them as well. The way current pop-culture is going, there are no good role models left for children. Maybe the thing to do is to actively cultivate friendship with the type of people that can be good role models for my kids. Then they can do what the “crowd” does.
As far as building character goes, a major contributing factor is hardship in childhood. In comfortable middle-class families like ours, hardship is hard to come by. What parent wants to deliberately put their kids through hardship? As a friend said, “it is crazy that you are worried about lack of lack”. The other ingredient for character seems to be strict discipline. Discipline is a hardship, in the sense that kids aren’t allowed to just do what they want. We parents however are overloaded with too much information about how to achieve discipline. Should the children be paid for doing chores? If punishing for bad behavior too negative, then isn’t rewarding for good behavior same as bribing? How much praise is too much?
What is a parent to do?
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
How to forgive friends and judge people
With Senator Kennedy’s death today, most media and friends on Facebook were talking about the loss of a great man. But then somebody piped up “He should be buried at the bottom of a lake. A murderer cannot be glorified”. I was reminded of similar comments when Michael Jackson died. I even blogged about it. My first reaction is to say that we should judge a person by their body of work, and not just one or two, what could be constituted, as mistakes. It is possible to like somebody's work without liking the person himself. But then again, just because somebody is glorified, we shouldn’t gloss over their negatives.
But it got me thinking. Who decides when the balance has tipped in one direction or another? Hitler must have done some good deeds in his life, but his death was as good a riddance as any, and I would be the last person asking him to be honored just because he is dead.
I often tell my kids that there are no good or bad people – only good and bad actions, and you judge people by weighing their good actions against their bad ones. All actions, however, don’t weigh the same. How do you teach them when to tip the scales? Did Ted Kennedy do enough good that his part in causing harm to some young women can be excused?
But it got me thinking. Who decides when the balance has tipped in one direction or another? Hitler must have done some good deeds in his life, but his death was as good a riddance as any, and I would be the last person asking him to be honored just because he is dead.
I often tell my kids that there are no good or bad people – only good and bad actions, and you judge people by weighing their good actions against their bad ones. All actions, however, don’t weigh the same. How do you teach them when to tip the scales? Did Ted Kennedy do enough good that his part in causing harm to some young women can be excused?
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Survival of the Fittest
I just saw this video on YouTube, and it got me wondering why is it that we don’t see a lot of original art coming out of India. India has a large population and an ancient tradition of classical forms of art, and yet you have to really strain hard to think of original artists – A. R. Rahman, M. F. Hussein and that’s it! I cannot even imagine a performance like this in “India’s got talent”. India has a huge film and music industry, yet most of the films are rehashed and adapted Hollywood scripts. Fittingly, there is no award distinguishing between adapted and original screenplay in the Indian "Oscars". The music directors for these movies are too smart to plagiarize from popular songs from big artists so they look for “inspiration” in smaller markets such as Turkey and Thailand and lift music from there.
This brings me to an article I read today about how babies can very quickly internalize the concept of probability and discover new mechanisms, just by exploring. The article stresses, however, that this type of learning best happens when babies are given freedom to explore and experiment on their own. Most babies and young children in India do not get this freedom and I think this is what ends up in stilted creativity as they grow older.
Anybody growing up in a country as populous as India, has to compete for resources at every stage of life – nothing comes to those who wait. If you don’t push through, leave aside getting a seat on the bus; you will probably not even get on the bus. If you stick to driving in your lane and politely try to pass others, you probably won’t get anywhere. Unless you excel in school in some way, you will be starved for teacher’s attention. Unless you perform, and perform really well in school you will not have any kind of a career. This is the lesson you learn at every step – life is very competitive and it starts early. Even a small block party held in the neighborhood to celebrate a holiday will have some kind of competition for kids – poetry recitation, some sort of race etc. and only the winner gets a prize. Only success is rewarded and recognized; not perseverance, not hard work, not originality – only success. You do not have the freedom to fail, and learn from it. There are no second chances. To see how endemic this has become in the culture you only have to visit a “Chuck-E-Cheese” type game parlor. There you will see the store workers as well as parents helping each child to win as many tickets as possible so that they can get a big prize in the end. This is what brought it home for me finally as I had to keep telling surprised store workers to back off. They couldn’t understand why I didn’t want them to help my child win big!
This is the reason that parents start teaching babies the alphabet, the multiplication tables and seek out academic programs by the time the kids are 3, to give them a heads up later. It is easy to find math and zoology classes for 4 year-olds in India! There is no room or time for exploration – learn your facts so that you can ace that interview for a good elementary school. If you don’t get there in the first try, you don’t have any more chances. And if you don’t get in a good school, your chances in life start dwindling right away. If you don’t do well in your 10th grade finals, you lose the chance to ever study math and science in the grades ahead. There is no room for and no appreciation for creativity, and definitely no time for discovering and indulging in your passions. Most kids spend 2-3 hours every day after school in classes to help them perform better at school. Only winning matters – and this is instilled early and often.
My intention is not to insult my roots, or the system that got me where I am today. But I do think it is time to take some pressure off the children because it seems to just keep growing. Mention this to any Indian and they will point out how Indians win math and science competitions world-wide, and thank you very much, but it is a great system. Why do Indian kids win spelling bees and geography bees – not because they are any smarter but because their parents grew up in a culture where winning competitions and memorizing facts are the tickets to success. Most Indians follow successful careers in the US, but do they ever follow their passion? Do they ever blaze a new trail in their field?
There is some upside for a system like India’s. Children learn early that you don’t get anything for just showing up, you have to perform. I have never seen kids cry at a competition in India because they didn’t win. In the US we seem to have the opposite problem where kids think themselves too entitled. I have had 8yo burst into tears at birthday parties here because they didn’t win musical chairs, and only got the basic “goody bag”, not the special prize. The American public education system has so much focus on leveling the playing field, and catering to the average that exceptional kids often feel left out, unappreciated and bored.
Is it even possible to create a perfect system?
This brings me to an article I read today about how babies can very quickly internalize the concept of probability and discover new mechanisms, just by exploring. The article stresses, however, that this type of learning best happens when babies are given freedom to explore and experiment on their own. Most babies and young children in India do not get this freedom and I think this is what ends up in stilted creativity as they grow older.
Anybody growing up in a country as populous as India, has to compete for resources at every stage of life – nothing comes to those who wait. If you don’t push through, leave aside getting a seat on the bus; you will probably not even get on the bus. If you stick to driving in your lane and politely try to pass others, you probably won’t get anywhere. Unless you excel in school in some way, you will be starved for teacher’s attention. Unless you perform, and perform really well in school you will not have any kind of a career. This is the lesson you learn at every step – life is very competitive and it starts early. Even a small block party held in the neighborhood to celebrate a holiday will have some kind of competition for kids – poetry recitation, some sort of race etc. and only the winner gets a prize. Only success is rewarded and recognized; not perseverance, not hard work, not originality – only success. You do not have the freedom to fail, and learn from it. There are no second chances. To see how endemic this has become in the culture you only have to visit a “Chuck-E-Cheese” type game parlor. There you will see the store workers as well as parents helping each child to win as many tickets as possible so that they can get a big prize in the end. This is what brought it home for me finally as I had to keep telling surprised store workers to back off. They couldn’t understand why I didn’t want them to help my child win big!
This is the reason that parents start teaching babies the alphabet, the multiplication tables and seek out academic programs by the time the kids are 3, to give them a heads up later. It is easy to find math and zoology classes for 4 year-olds in India! There is no room or time for exploration – learn your facts so that you can ace that interview for a good elementary school. If you don’t get there in the first try, you don’t have any more chances. And if you don’t get in a good school, your chances in life start dwindling right away. If you don’t do well in your 10th grade finals, you lose the chance to ever study math and science in the grades ahead. There is no room for and no appreciation for creativity, and definitely no time for discovering and indulging in your passions. Most kids spend 2-3 hours every day after school in classes to help them perform better at school. Only winning matters – and this is instilled early and often.
My intention is not to insult my roots, or the system that got me where I am today. But I do think it is time to take some pressure off the children because it seems to just keep growing. Mention this to any Indian and they will point out how Indians win math and science competitions world-wide, and thank you very much, but it is a great system. Why do Indian kids win spelling bees and geography bees – not because they are any smarter but because their parents grew up in a culture where winning competitions and memorizing facts are the tickets to success. Most Indians follow successful careers in the US, but do they ever follow their passion? Do they ever blaze a new trail in their field?
There is some upside for a system like India’s. Children learn early that you don’t get anything for just showing up, you have to perform. I have never seen kids cry at a competition in India because they didn’t win. In the US we seem to have the opposite problem where kids think themselves too entitled. I have had 8yo burst into tears at birthday parties here because they didn’t win musical chairs, and only got the basic “goody bag”, not the special prize. The American public education system has so much focus on leveling the playing field, and catering to the average that exceptional kids often feel left out, unappreciated and bored.
Is it even possible to create a perfect system?
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