The Bank of Mum and Dad

What do we owe our children - and for how long?

 A couple of weeks ago I read an article in a British newspaper, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. It was written – anonymously (I wonder why?) – by a young person who was very concerned about the fact that their inheritance was being squandered by their parents who were ‘blowing up’ their savings on expensive holidays, new cars, luxury purchases, etc. At the rate at which these ‘boomers’ were going through their money, their resentful child complained, there would be nothing left to inherit by the time they passed. 

 

I read to the end feeling horrified at the entitlement dripping through every line. It was mind-boggling to see that an adult (the writer admitted to being in their 30s) still felt that their parents owed them a living – and believed that these retired folk should forgo all the luxuries they had worked so hard for all their lives just so that they could leave a nice little nest egg for their progeny.

 

But once my shock had subsided, I realized that this is exactly what people of my parents’ generation had done in India, without even thinking about it. They may have spent all their lives in salaried slavery, but they put aside every penny for their children’s higher education, weddings, or even a deposit for a car or an apartment. The social contract they grew up with entailed that everything they did was geared towards the comfort and advancement of their kids. Their own needs came last – if at all.

 

I suspect, however, that things have changed with my generation. This is the generation where, for the most part, both husband and wife worked outside the home, and had a substantial disposable income that they used to access the luxuries of life. These are the people who have had successful careers of their own; who both work and play hard; and who think that they deserve the fruits of their labour. They love their children and do their best by them – but the kids are by no means the be-all and end-all of their existence.

 

So, this generation of grandmoms are not going to be available around the clock – and indeed around the year – to babysit their grandkids whenever the parents need a break. They may spoil and indulge their grandchildren; they may enjoy spending time with them; but it will always be on their own terms. If their kids need childminding during the summer break, they are going to have to look elsewhere – Grandma and Grandpa will be too busy sunning themselves in the Maldives or hiking in Europe.

Similarly, the grandpas of today are more likely to be spending their disposable income in buying the car of their dreams (which they could never afford in their youth), paying astronomical sums of money to join clubs where they can play golf (or just hang out), and treating themselves to the latest electronic gadgets in the market.

 

So, the Bank of Mum and Dad may be closed for business for the kids coming of age now – who are going to have to learn to stand on their own two feet. And on balance, that’s probably not such a bad thing. Nothing concentrates the mind more than the knowledge that you have to make it on your own.

 

The book's the thing

How to turn your child into a reader

Last week, my eldest niece’s daughter turned 13 (in case you’re wondering, my sister is 16 years older than I am!) and all our thoughts turned to buying her the perfect present to mark her transformation into a teenager. After being presented with a plethora of choices – Handbag? Shoes? Earrings? Clothes? – Hitee made her decision. 

All she wanted for her birthday was books. And not just the kind that you can download on Kindle. She wanted actual, physical books made of paper and glue, the ones that come with beautiful covers that you can gaze at admiringly, and the smell that transports to mythical worlds far away from your everyday reality.

So, that’s what all of us gave her: books. And her joy as she laid eyes on each one was quite something to behold.

Truth be told, it took me back to my own childhood and teenage years, when I lived for the times when I could get hold of a new book. In my case, the few books I owned were supplemented by the school library, and those in turn were supplemented by the lending library that my mother had signed me on for. So, it felt good to see that the Goswami reading gene had been transmitted to another generation, even if it had skipped one generation in the process (the only reading my niece does is Whatsapp forwards; I exaggerate, of course, but only by a bit). 

But more importantly, it made me delirious with joy to see that at least some young people were still into books and treated reading like a pleasure rather than a chore. I can only hope and pray that their tribe increases year after year.

But that increase won’t happen in the absence of effort on the part of the responsible adults in the lives of these children. The joy of reading needs to be inculcated at an early age, and then fed on a steady diet of good books if it is not to die out by adulthood. And parents and family members can play an important role in this regard.

So, what should you do if you want the child in your life to grow up to be a reader? Well, here are a few pointers that have stood me in good stead all these years. Maybe they would work for you as well.

Start them young

And by that, I mean very young indeed. Read to your baby even if it seems as if she doesn’t understand anything at all. Sing aloud to her from books of rhymes. Introduce her to the different animals in the books you read. As she grows older, this routine will be so familiar to her that she will regard books as an integral part of playtime. And she will soon be clamouring to be read to, not just at night as a bedtime ritual, but also during the day. 


Make reading fun

When your kids are younger, you can keep them amused with pop-up books, so that they can physically touch the castles they are reading about and gaze at the princesses who live within them. When they learn to read themselves, make them read one page while you read the next. As they grow older, you can involve them in the storytelling itself. Break off at an interesting point one evening and ask them to come up with their own version of what happened next by the morning. That will not just make them more invested in the stories but will also boost their imagination and enhance their creativity.

Bond over shared favourites

Half the pleasure of reading to your children stems from the joy of rediscovering your own childhood favourites – and seeing how they speak to you now that you are all grown up. There will be plenty of books from your own childhood that will not make the cut in this era of political correctness, but some perennial favourites are just the thing to bond over (as in, if Noddy seems too racist, then stick to the Five Find-Outers). There is no greater satisfaction than seeing your kids fall in love with the fictional characters that were your own best friends growing up. And in seeing them immersed in the same stories that were the staple of your childhood reading. 

Broaden their horizons

That said, the world has now expanded far beyond Enid Blyton and Nancy Drew (yes, yes, I know, one is an author, the other a fictional character) and there is an entire new universe of children’s fiction out there. Explore that along with your child, discover new worlds together, marvel at the plethora of diverse characters that exists in kids’ fiction today. Introduce them to mythological tales from all across the world. Buy them translations of children’s books from other countries and cultures. It is never too early to teach them that we live in a big, wide world, in which people of all shapes, colours, creeds and beliefs exist. But that, no matter what their differences and however diverse their stories, they are all united by the universal themes of love, peace and acceptance.

I spy

Is it ever a good idea to snoop on your children?

It is a scary time to be the parent of teenager. You don’t just have to cope with the ready availability of drinks and drugs, though that is hard enough. With the virtual mainstreaming of porn (available to anyone at the click of a mouse) sex is also a danger zone. Sexting, or sending sexually explicit pictures via phone texts, is rampant among the teenage population. Peer pressure forces kids to become sexual players long before they are ready for sex at an emotional level.  Sexual predators lurk in chat rooms and social media sites to prey on the young and the vulnerable. And the real world is scarcely safer, with reports of rapes and molestations coming in every day.

Combine this with the natural inclination of all kids to turn into monosyllabic creatures of mystery as soon as they hit puberty and you have a huge problem. Just when your children seem to be most vulnerable, their world is closed to you. And the only way to get even a glimpse is (not to put too fine a point on it) by snooping.

The good news is that spying on your kids has never been easier. You can use the GPS on their mobiles to track their whereabouts throughout the day. There are apps that will allow you to monitor their on-line activity – which sites they visited, what software they downloaded, etc – without their being any the wiser. And you can lurk in the corners to check out what they are posting on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram (or get someone else to do the lurking for you).

But just because something is easy, should you do it? And what will you do with the information you glean? There is no way you can use it without admitting that you have been spying. And once you admit that, what will be the repercussions on your relationship with your kids? Will they ever forgive you for invading their privacy? Will they ever trust you again, given that trust goes both ways? What if they rebel against this helicopter parenting and become even more secretive than before? Given their competitive advantage in matters of technology, this is one battle you may never win.

Yet, there is no denying that our children are vulnerable on the Net. Cyber-bullying is rampant, and is sometimes so ferocious that it leads kids to kill themselves. Girls as young as 13 are pressured into sending ‘sexy’ pictures of themselves to their boyfriends; who then circulate them among their friends when the ‘relationship’ ends. And you only have to read reports about the Steubenville rape to see how Instagram, Twitter and other social networks are used to humiliate and shame.

So, when it comes right down to it, would you spy on your teenager? And does it ever turn out well?

Well, the jury is out on that one. I know parents who predicate their relationship with their teenage kids on trust and allow them their space. They respect the boundaries their kids put up and their children respond by being open and sharing their lives with them. But this hands-off attitude doesn’t work for everyone – and may even be downright dangerous for some.

On the other extreme, there are parents who believe that knowledge is power and maintain a constant surveillance on their kids. And while their kids may stay safe as a consequence, their relationship with their children does not exactly flourish. The kids resent the constant interference; and the implication that they are not to be trusted.

So what is a parent to do? It’s a tough one. You can’t really abdicate all responsibility for keeping your kids safe on the grounds that they are entitled to their privacy. On the other hand, you don’t want to be so intrusive that they shut themselves off from you forever. It is a fine line that separates caring from smothering; and parents will find themselves on the wrong side of it one time or another.

But the perils of prying work both ways. In one of my favourite episodes of Modern Family, Claire Dunphy joins Facebook and badgers her two teenage daughters into accepting her friend request in the hope of keeping tabs on their lives. But the tables are turned when an embarrassing photo of Claire – in her wild college days – is posted on Facebook by one of her old friends. It is Claire who is left red-faced as she tries (and fails) to delete the image. 

There is a lesson for us all there. Just as there is some stuff you don’t want your kids to know about you, there is some stuff that your kids don’t want to share with you. It’s all a part of growing up, becoming their own person, inhabiting their own world. And whether it is real life or the virtual world, you have to learn to let go.

That said, I have to admit that spying by parents can teach kids a valuable lesson: that nothing you post on the Internet, no matter how well you monitor your privacy settings, is ever private. Each photo, Facebook post or tweet will live on forever in the ether. The only way to keep things really private is to keep them off the Net. But to delight of spying parents everywhere, that’s one thing Generation Next seems incapable of doing.

The Prat Pack

Bring up your kids to believe in their non-existent talent; and they’ll soon be making fools of themselves on national television

Have you been watching some of the auditions for the so-called reality shows on Indian TV? You know the ones I mean: which promise to find the best singer in the country; the leading dancing star; or even the most talented performer across genres.

Well, if you have, then you will have been just as bemused to see some of the so-called contestants perform on these shows. There are putative singers who can’t hold a tune to save their lives and give the term tone-deaf an entirely new dimension. There are modelling hopefuls who are short and stout and could do with a spot of dental and dermatological work. There are actors who can’t act; dancers who seem to have been born with two left feet. I could go on, if it didn’t mean that I would rapidly lose the will to live.

I don’t know about you, but every time I watch some of these abominations which make a mockery of genuine talent, I can’t help but wonder how some people can be so delusional about their abilities – or more accurately, the lack thereof.

And now, much teeth-gnashing later, I have come to a conclusion: I blame the parents.

Sounds a tad harsh? Perhaps it is. But it is true nonetheless. Just think about it. How did these people grow up being so deluded about just how good they were about their singing/dancing/acting? It can’t have been because all their chums at school told them how brilliant they were. There is nothing like your fellow students for taking the mickey out of you and telling you that you are making a damned fool of yourself. And they certainly couldn’t have been encouraged by extended family or friends, who have the necessary distance to tell the truth – and with luck, the goodwill to have your best interests at heart.

The only people who could have made them believe in their non-existent talent were their doting parents, who gazed on them fondly through those proverbial rose-tinted glasses which make even the most unpromising youngster seem like a budding genius. Result: we have a whole set of people who have grown up believing in themselves despite every evidence to the contrary, only because Mummy and Daddy told them over and over again how brilliant they were, how so very wonderful, the absolute acme of perfection, in fact.

In some ways, I think, this is a generational thing. The New Age parent genuinely seems to think that the best way to bring up children is to tell them that they are perfect and that they can do no wrong, no matter how hard they try. Their slightest literary effort is praised to the skies. Their sporting ability is exaggerated beyond all rational bounds. And artistic talent is thrust upon them even when there is no evidence that they posses any. These kids are told over and over again how marvellous they are; that the world is their oyster; and all they have to do is go out and conquer it, like the alpha creatures they are.

Is it any wonder than that these kids grow up believing that they are absolutely fabulous? That they can do no wrong? And that the sun, as it were, shines out of their perfect posteriors?

The one place that these children could have the stuffing knocked out of them is at school. But even here the reigning philosophy seems to be to encourage children rather than bring them to terms with a realistic appraisal of their abilities. Now, it’s all about not grading the little mites, so as to not destroy their self-esteem. It’s all about not keeping score in games so that nobody feels like a loser. So, medals all around for merely turning up. And everyone is a winner.

Except that they’re not. There will always be kids who are rubbish at sport (I certainly was; that sad kid always last to be picked by any team). There will be children who can’t make sense of physics or math (yes, me again). And there will be students who can’t write a readable essay no matter how hard they try (aha, not me this time round, thank God). And no purpose is served by convincing the poor dears that they are actually any good at this stuff, when they are patently not.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am all for nurturing the self-confidence of children, of boosting their self-esteem, of inculcating a sense of self-belief in them. But let’s not kid ourselves. We are not going to achieve this by giving them a completely unrealistic view of their own abilities and talents. In fact, you could argue that it is the duty of every parent to tell his or her child just what he or she is good (or bad) at. Because sooner rather than later, these kids are going to go out into the real world where there are no prizes for coming second, let alone last.

So, for God’s sake, be honest with your kids as they grow up. Praise their achievements. But be sure to make them aware of their shortcomings too. Encourage their strengths but don’t fight shy of pointing out their weaknesses. They will thank you for it one day, no matter how much they hate you now.

And if you don’t, then be warned. One day in the not-so-distant future, it could be your kid up there making an absolute ass of himself (or herself) on national television. And believe me, you don’t want that.