Charity begins at home

It’s true -- our kids learn from us, silently observing adult behaviour & emulating the same in their child-like role playing. Powers of observation during our growing years are at its peak & kids are like sponges ready to absorb all. 

If during these early childhood years, we teach our kids to be patient, law abiding, honest, charitable, ethical & fair only then will they be exactly that. Of course, this means that we need to be all of the above & can lead them only through example. And from this thought, comes the coinage "charity begins at home" and, as you have perhaps guessed by now, I'm a total sucker for clichés & sincerely believe they exist for a reason. 

We've been blessed with two kids & realised then, that children idolise their parents (be warned only in their early years) & they are the first ever role models. My partner & I believe that it’s the little things we teach our kids while growing up that makes them who they become; hopefully we have taught ours well. 

Currently, with my driver on leave, I am being subjected to the tortures of driving on the Bombay roads and suffer silently, as I hopelessly watch all the illustrious law-breaking co-drivers dashing, left to right to left, in hypnotic frenzy. Perhaps the hot Indian summer does not help & perhaps our inability to teach our kids the right thing - they all contribute.

For clarity, a few examples to explain what I mean:

1.      A few parents known to us allow their 16 year old son to drive & are quite proud of the fact that their son is so accomplished. (Legal age in India is 18 years)

2.     Another drives on the wrong side of the road with his 10 year old son seated in the back seat. Perhaps, teaching him it’s okay to take a convenient short cut, even if it breaks a traffic law.

3.     Another strange couple carries their infant (head hanging lose) on a motorbike. Sometimes even with two little kids 

4.     One yet other ridiculous sight was a biker with no helmet, no protective gear, hands off the handle, i-pod plugged to his ears, posing while riding, head thrown back & singing to the music aka Bollywood style -- he could have well been run over by one careless bus driver who would have missed his seriously amusing, yet stupid antics imitating his favourite matinee idol.

5.     a few proudly throw garbage from a moving car straight on to the road.

6.     Not to forget mentioning India's favourite pass-time - spitting on the roads. Especially at a signal, the car door opens & the driver or a passenger lets off a full-bloodied spew (it truly looks as disgusting as it reads)

.....and sadly these are all witnessed traffic truths. 

So what makes us such enterprising individuals? 

I believe it’s what we learn at home. It shapes us into who we become. If, growing up we are taught its okay to drive before the legal age, okay to drive on the wrong side of the road, okay not to wear a helmet while riding, okay to carry infants on motorcycles, okay to roll down the window & mess our country -- then we learn at an early age that, it's okay to do the wrong thing, if convenient & laws are meant to be broken.

And unfortunately, this behaviour does not end at the traffic signals, it transcends into every other little thing we do.

If parents are seen breaking laws, no matter how small the crime, then for the child, it’s okay to break the law as long as one can get away with it. And yes its true, it starts with these little lessons & then escalate into bigger evils.

To see any reform, it’s the parent who will need to change. Teach their kids to take little inconvenient steps & do the right things & that is how we will start building ourselves & our children into evolved, self - regulated & self - disciplined individuals.

Do remember 'charity does really begin at home'. 

On that happy note - I sign off this week's blog & will see you next week. Keep reading & sending me your feedback for "the little things - comes straight from the heart".

Empty Nesters

A good first anything is always a difficult act to follow – consistency is the hardest to maintain and like everything else in our lives that’s true of a writing a blog post too.

Recently, I read an article written by one of my favourite authors (Suketu Mehta) on how the world is divided into two sets of folks - those with kids & those without and it got me thinking about our soon to be empty nest.

It also managed to bring back some lovely memories, those two days' when unplanned miracles blessed our lives and put us in the former category, thus changing our lives forever. 

As young parents, we fumbled clumsily to do the right things and failing quite so often. Luckily, our kids have forgiven us, perhaps due to our constant acceptance of our mistakes and candid confessions of loving them despite our imperfections.

In the early days of parenthood, I guiltily admit to envying every single young person, watching them party evening after evening, while I ran home to be with my babies. I envied every career driven young (gender no bias) who raced ahead of me, I admit to feeling low for being denied promotions and for being considered a wild card who (the mother in me) may quit her job any day. I foolishly remember the immature me, trying to keep up with the singles’ at every step yet not managing to succeed ever so often.

If only, there had been a crystal ball to peer into during those years of growing pains, it would have surely saved me the embarrassment, as I look back.

Now as our young 20 year old moves out to pursue her masters in journalism, and travels to foreign lands to live her dream – I (my partner is more discrete) am at the cross roads of mixed emotions feeling the pangs of change tug at me. And this is just the beginning, our nest will truly be empty in another 3 years.

Life without the messiness of these little pups seems unimaginable. The dinner table conversations about F-1, football, politics, live commentaries about our days’ experiences, the healthy sibling rivalries, the friendly debates, favourite television shows, amusing tales of our two canines, animated discussions of where to holiday next- (Sigh) how our lives were enriched and now this buzzing nest life will be different forever.

All of us will move into the next undiscovered phase of our lives.

As we move to our new experiences, my advise to those yet young parents is;

• hug your kids more often than you already do
• tell them you love them as often as you can
• talk to them about their dreams while they want to share these with you
• learn about their friends while you can
• teach them to be ethical in their jobs, while they are willing to listen
• respectful to those less fortunate than yourselves
• teach them to be gracious in defeat and humble in victory
• teach them to be charitable through example
• tell them its okay to make & accept mistakes as long as you learn wisely from them
• teach them the right values on love and forgiveness and most importantly tell them that relationships are more important than any amount of money you can make
• teach them friendships and family are irreplaceable and to share your good fortune with those you love, after all what’s the point of being successful if you don't share it with your loved ones

I do truly have an amazing partner (the spouse does always know best - they live with each other) and we believe together we have managed to imbibe some of these ideals in our baby birds.

And as  they fly away and leave our nest empty, we hope that despite life’s struggling battles these early values will stay alive with them at all times. We wish these two kittens the very best of success, happiness, peace and good fortune, that we have been blessed with.

Perhaps this is also the right time for my partner and me to be 20 again and re-discover each other - restart where we left off….

Holding that thought - till next week.

Mother's Day

This being my first blog post ever -- I want it to be special - here's a simple attempt at doing just that.

As cliched as it sounds, there is no greater joy than being a mother. It changes your life forever, from a carefree & careless existence you instinctively become the most annoyingly cautious, careful & worrying individual, trivial things which seemed so inconsequential earlier become the centre of your worries.

Simple things start to matter: who are my neighbours, are they safe, are they helpful, will my kids be fine when they return from school with only the help to watch over them, how do I tell my boss its my kids PTA, how do I skip work for their Annual day, how do I explain the importance of being given priority over my single co-workers for leave dates.... Sigh - they do sound trivial - don't they!

This 20 year journey as a mother has been the most liberating and fulfilling of all the smaller journeys that I have experienced. And having the most amazing, well-mannered, simple & sweetest kids in the world helps.

My advise to the younger parents is always be simple & honest. Honest that you are never perfect, honest that you will make mistakes in this journey with them, honest that you need to give an equal share of attention to work as much as to them, honest that your dreams are as important as theirs, honest that you will not always be able to inspire your colleagues to understand that being a parent requires a special kind of support and honest that you really do LOVE them the most. 

I have had the most amazing partner who has imbibed in me this honest & simple approach and together we have been successful parents.  

On this mother's day - I thank my children for bringing so much sunshine into my life -- I don't think I would have been a better human being, had I not been a mom.

A simple truth.