Babies Anonymous

Recently I had a friend over and while we were talking, the subject of inlaws came up (how could it not? :p). Now to give you some background, my friend lives in a joint family with her various inlaws, happily and by choice. Nothing remarkable about that, you say?  Now get this, her husband is posted elsewhere (he’s in defence) and her parents live in the same city. Still she stays with her inlaws, out of choice. Now isn’t that remarkable? To me it is.

So I asked her how she does it, doesn’t she find it restrictive, uncomfortable? Wouldn’t she prefer her parent’s place? While we were discussing this, she said something that stayed with me all evening – One must not pamper one’s daughters. I know for a fact that her mom trained her to do chores around in the house as a young girl, beginning 7th std, every wednesday, dinner was cooked by her! Right though her board exams! And up until she got married she did the cooking in the house atleast two days a week. Along with the weekly washing and picking up around the house.

She admits that she resented it quite a bit especially when she saw how her friends chilled out at home (that would be me heh) with their mothers picking up after them but today she feels her mother did the best thing by her. Her mom trained her to be independent, and because of years and years of practice, she doesn’t find cooking/cleaning a difficult chore. And obviously that helps especially when you have to stay with the inlaws.

It’s not that I don’t know the importance of training children to be independent, far from it. I’ve always complained to my mom that she spoiled me by picking up after me. But I always thought of training as something I would do in the future, when Poppin was say X years old. What that X number is I didn’t have a clear picture of. Ofcourse she puts her toys away and fetches things and puts her dirty dishes in the sink (I have to remind her!). But I’m not sure if that’s enough.

Ever since I saw this post by Art (whom I admire immensely) about how Anush helps around in the house and does chores I’ve been mulling this fact. I look around at the 9,10,11 year old girls in my family, and I think I’ve never seen them do anything to help their mothers either. And then I think, when is the age to start anything at all? Isn’t it better to start early, let them do what they can and make it such an ingrained part of their lives that they don’t think twice about it?

So I began, last weekend, asked Poppin to wash her personal dishes, and well, you know how kids are this age – they live to please you ! The challenge is in keeping this going through those rebellious teenage years when she’d far rather be yakking with her friends than in helping me out in the kitchen.

But training a child to do chores so that he/she doesn’t find it hard later is just one part, the deeper implication of my friend’s statement is that one must not encourage dependence and attachment to and from a child. And at that statement, I felt discomfort. I don’t know if I can ever agree completely to it or distill it in my head enough, but I am certainly thinking about it.

I pamper my children not in the material sense ..it’s hard to explain but I know that I overdo the mothering bit at times. Now is that wrong? Am I impairing their ability to form deep attachments later? Am I giving them a strong foundation of love or am I holding them back as Indian parents are wont to do – staking claim on their children even much after they form families of their own. If I make it too easy for them now, will they balk and back out of relationship difficulties later?

No easy answers, only time will tell.

P.S Although I said ‘daughters’ thoughout this post, I mean ‘sons’ too. Infact if I had a son, I’d want to raise him so that my DIL would be kissing my feet in gratitude at how much work he does around the house 🙂 And more importantly, he would be more attached to her than to me. Hah. Dreams Dreams!

P.P.S I know, I know I’m doing loooong verbose sermonizing posts these days. I am in a rut – somebody help me!