When your instinct becomes extinct!

I recently came across a post by a sex educator on Insta where she shared a desperate plea for help from a parent. Well, the intent behind sharing the post wasnt revealed entirely until I read the last part of her text that was something on the lines of –

this is why boundaries and age appropriate sex education is important and HENCE, do join my classes!

My attention went back to the plea where the parent recounted how her 6 year old daughter recorded herself or rather, her private parts on her IPad without their knowledge

Killing 2 birds with one stone? For the sex educator?

I guess, yes.

One, the need for age appropriate sex ed. Two, pay and learn how to parent.

When I first read this ‘desperate call for help’, it raised a flurry of red flags.

1. How did a 6 year old get the idea? (Being first) (I know kids as toddlers try to explore their bodies but there are ways and means to divert the child from indulging in their naturally fueled curiosity without discounting it. But, a 6 year old doing the same, is it normal?)
2. Why on earth is the child carrying IPad to school? Or rather, which school allows this?
3. Did the idea come from school or, from the ‘safe confines’ of the home?
4. How unapologetically is that cry for help being used as a business prop by a sex educator for promoting her business?
5. Since when did our species become so dumb that one did not even bother checking what a 6 year Old is watching on his or her iPads?

I am old school about a lot of things in parenting. Like, a 4 year old telling an adult – ‘आप इस जगह से हटो नहीं तो मैं आपको सबक सिखाऊंगी!’ while the mother cheers this behavior and, feels awestruck about it and rather describes it ‘cute‘. Nope, it is NOT cute. It is rude. And, a 4 year old may not know it. But, the mother does, right? Instead of course-correcting the behavior, the mother enables It. I have witnessed umpteen cases where young children end up saying the meanest things to other kids/adults alike with almost no provocation and, the entire episode is often lauded as “how cute! How crisp the child speaks!”

I know a relative who grew up that way, unchecked and more often than not, applauded for an acid tongue as a kid. The thing is, as a senior citizen today, life is tough for that person because the good and tolerating people don’t live for ever and, kindness is definitely NOT this world’s first virtue. The kids who grow unchecked or, without a course correction in their behavior will grow up into mentally unwell adults who are incapable of knowing their flaws and, worse believe their delusions about the world to be true. It is painful to watch those adults struggle to get through each day as they are fully aware that something is wrong with them and, they just don’t know, what!

A lot of children get away saying the meanest things only because the adults around assume that it is a passe and, children eventually get around. Nope. They don’t. Instead they grow up thinking it is just fine to talk that way, to hurt people without a reason and, to believe that one could always get away with it. Younger the child, deeper the indoctrination. Sadly.

So, when you do NOT stop a young child from being disrespectful towards an adult or his own peers or his juniors, you do two WRONG things,

One, the child assumes disrespecting everyone around is his/her right and, it will NOT have consequences whatsoever.
Two, you enable the child to pass on that bad behavior to your future generations that will also believe in the same.

Unfortunately, we as a species have enabled mollycoddling children without realizing that children are way stronger than us, in strength and spirit. For some reason, we underestimate them a tad too much. We feel the need to constantly protect them from everything that will make them sad. From where I see it, it would be a successful attempt at making sure that a caterpillar stays a caterpillar all his life.

A child is bound to take falls. When he or she first learns to ride a cycle without support, (s)he would surely have had the experience of bruised knees, a blue shin and, perhaps a bleeding toe. The learning comes with some pain, always. If a child demands he have an Xbox, a modern day parent would instantly give in and buy it. Will that help? How about making the child work for his own betterment first and then, surprise him or her with the thing he has been anticipating to own? We have enabled a world where a child believes more in entitlement than in, self worth. Gone are days, when pocket money was earned by the child after he or she did a chore at home, say – cleaning the car, helping with shopping or even cooking at times. Now, it is entitlement without working, a very dangerous trend setter. While many millennials are busy making funny reels and content on their parents about how the former exaggerate their struggles when there was no technology, the millenials in the process have clearly forgotten how easy it has been for them to joke and jibe about a world without the Internet, a life unimaginable! Discounting struggles of a bygone era by making a joke out of how people lived in earlier days holds out the mirror of truth to each of us – we have started rotting while we are still living.

Coming back to parenting as we see it, an incident sprang up from my memory trove, from the time when Arjun was barely 2 years old. This will always remain etched in my memory as a lesson in parenting for me. He was trying to jump from the dining table (three times his height) and, despite my repeated warnings, he tried the stunt only to elicit the warning out of me (I was oblivious then to being played by a two year old 😁) The thing is, he did not jump. He merely gestured that he will and, I would run like the wind to rescue him, even when he did not necessarily need it. One day, my husband who was watching this drama for a while, held my hand and asked me to sit calmly while he stood across the boy and, asked him to jump. Arjun did not expect this and, he took a few steps back. The husband calmly gestured him to jump saying it would be good fun. And then, the boy took a couple of steps ahead. “Jump!” – a stern voice from the husband and Arjun jumped. The landing was perfect. Noone got hurt. The boy rather felt good about himself but, he was equally startled by the height from where he jumped. He never pulled the -“I will jump” stunt with me thereafter. That day, Arjun learned about gravity in Science (which my husband explained with Newton’s apple) while I learned about the gravity of tact in knowing when to act and, when not to. A second incident happened a year later when Arjun was just learning to cycle. In the initial days, I would always hold the back rest and, he would peddle in the comfort knowing I had his back. And then one day, the husband accompanied me on one of the walks wherein he volunteered to hold the back rest, while we discussed politics, economics and all sundry. I did not really notice when the husband had left the back rest of the cycle and, the boy peddled gleefully unaware that his support system was getting further and further away. In the next few minutes, he turned around and saw us quite far, predictably lost the balance, fell down and bruised his knee. He did cry, looked at me and cried some more. My steps hastened but the husband pulled me back. “Don’t go! Just give him a few more minutes. He will be back on that cycle. Don’t, I repeat – Don’t rush to him!“. I obliged, albeit grudgingly. To my surprise, he did exactly as the husband predicted. The boy got up, wiped his eyes dry on his sleeves, dusted a little, sat on the cycle and resumed riding, and this time unaware that he was riding by himself. That was the second important parenting lesson I learned – GIVE your child the confidence that he or she can comeback from any setback, regardless of how big or small it is and regardless of whether you are there around or not.

We must learn to trust the intelligence and the ability of our children more than we are conditioned to. Children absorb everything like a sponge. The words we speak at home, the way we treat our Spouses, parents, inlaws and relatives, the way we communicate with our friends, the manner in which we conduct when someone visits our home, the warmth we exude when we meet our favourite people and, the coldness we emanate when we meet the other kind, our opinions on the country’s functioning and, our perception of the world outside and almost everything under the Sun and in-between. Children are shaped by what they see in us – who we are when everyone is watching us and also by, who we are when none is.

I agree that old school parenting has flaws – some major ones too. But then, so does the modern day parenting. Maybe we need to include a few life lessons from earlier times, because those times were resilient and sustained well in a non digital era. Also, the individuals that came from the upbringing of those times may not be all receptive to changes today but, their mental make is much stronger and sturdier. The reason being – they knew to take a NO, a SETBACK, a PAUSE, a TRAGEDY, a sudden deluge of unfortunate events, well in their stride, a quality that is more on the verge of becoming extinct today.

My father would often advise me when I was in my pre teens – LEARN TO ACCEPT NO AS AN ANSWER. It is one of the best life lessons I have learned and, NOT so easily. While we all jump the gun in saying a NO, we have somewhere left behind the wisdom in accepting the same NO when we desperately bellow/wail/crave for something that just won’t come to us.

Life will not always be rosy. On some days, it will be gloomy. On some days, it will be cold. On some days, it will be empty. On some days, it will be full. A child must know that despite all seasons of change, there is always a way out and, the way out will more likely be uphill and challenging. The motto should be onwards and upwards, always no matter what.

But, importantly there is one life lesson we must consciously impart to our children and that is – Every action/inaction will have a consequence and, we as humans will always be held accountable for our actions, whether we like it or not.

So next time, when a parent fails to correct his or child with the knowing that the action is wrong, the parent is at fault. The child will face the consequences of a lesson that was NOT imparted when it should have been.

One doesn’t have to pay and, learn parenting. One needs to give more credit to instincts that are born in a parent from the time he or she becomes one. Sadly, the instinct is being pushed to the fringes as a few new age parents who are less than a decade old in the parenting journey have a flourishing business, minting money from sharing parenting hacks (sourced from content on The Internet) in an aesthetically appealing format – a trick that countless parents fall for.

Maybe for a change, discard the rhetorical – what will people say? लोग क्या कहेंगे? And try listening to your parental instinct.. and you will know that you always knew what you sought to learn and, your ancestors will always answer you whenever you ask them the right questions.

Do NOT let your parental instinct go extinct!