Upbringing a daughter
Some of these experiences might find resemblance where you have daughter and especially live outside your country of origin. Let's start with the mother tongue, माय (mother) Marathi.
Some of these experiences might find resemblance where you have daughter and especially live outside your country of origin. Let's start with the mother tongue, माय (mother) Marathi.
Well this is probably the way language dies its natural death. I wanted to share my experiences about how ardent language follower finds it heart wrenching to see its language slowly dying. I did my schooling in marathi a local Indian language. I loved the mother tongue (like everyone may be!). Not merely for it was mother tongue but it was the most beautiful ornamental and decorated by many best literary legends and saints. Simply put the amount of wealth that is written in Marathi makes me feel so nervous that people who stop reading or learning this language would be missing to plethora of the most beautiful literature. My son Ishan was little over 2 years when we moved to UK. The daughter Ira was born in UK and has been in English school and environment since birth. We speak Marathi at home and Ira replies mostly in English (there it starts!). So every few statements I end up making instructions "respond in Marathi!" And a quiet spell follows and then again Sporadic English papered with Marathi. Then just English and then follows English with heavy British accept. I give up. That's how dinning table conversation contours over various subjects. Then comes a trip in car or various train tours. I try play a word game with Ira. I tell a English word and she has to translate it in Marathi. And we take turns. It goes well until we move to some other game. Then Saturday morning 9 AM we have Marathi lessons at home conducted by myself on a whiteboard. Kids enjoy but obviously progress does not match their English proficiency. It hurts but I go on. Later I tell a bed time story in Marathi. This does have many inspiring names from history and mythology. Another reason to push marathi is that it also keeps you closer to Sanskrit which is my another love. Kids will have lost all the knowledge that is in Sanskrit. I am not a big fan of idol worship but passionate follower of Hindu dharma and its knowledge of universe, soul and nature. It's Geeta of karma is enchanting. But I have to take baby steps on Marathi for now. Sanskrit is not in the sight. I also do cover my kids by transferring the ancient knowledge of Hinduism in English. After all I should also ensure language does not become barrier for knowledge for Ira and Ishan. But clearly me and my English and the English language itself has limits. Saint Dnyaneshwar had translated Geeta into Dnyaneshwari for similar reasons. Not that I compare myself with him. May be one day she will love to read and write Marathi. At least I can continue feeding the translated knowledge if things fall apart on learning Marathi.
Let's move onto the part II i.e. माय (My) princess......
I hate when my daughter drowns into doll and princess games and plays a delicate dream waiting for price to come or do some cooking in play or keep changing dress or keep applying make-up. It hurts! I feel she should be reading about all inspiring women of history. A scientist or a astronaut, an army woman or queen who ruthlessly ruled and fought battles like Rani Laxmibai. I never want my daughter to be princess by inheritance. They have to rule by their virtue and ability. The toy companies and cartoons don't help me at all by making all dolls and makeup kits and kitchen sets for girls. I want my daughter to stand strong and not wait for a helping hand to get out of car or on step on buggy. She should be independent and being able to earn her own and even support her family or many others. I try to tell her story of astronaut Kalpana chawla who died while flying back Earth from space. I see spark in the eyes and it's reassuring that girls can be brought up as flying Iron Lady. By nature their body is soft and may be to some extent their emotional mindset makes them sensitive. But we can allow them to dream Merry Kom, the world champion boxer if we train them. I feel their doll and kitchen sets is just to keep them away from dashing sports and leave them vulnerable when a man hurts them physically or mentally. I think woman should be able to try her hands on heavy vehicles, trucks just as men. Their arms, while being caring, should have same strength as man. I don't know by pushing my daughter to be a bold, strong and sporty if I am changing her basic nature/identity. But It's my own insecurity about her that forces me to behave the way I do with her. I want to treat her with heat to convert her raw iron into steel but if it's gold, it's just going to melt. I feel that sometimes when I push for longer cycling rounds. Now she has learned cycling after lot of moaning about how bad cycle teacher dad is. But she had no escapes except few tantrums and tears that don't melt me. I want to make sure when she marries, her partner gets a spouse who is equal in strength mentally, may be physically and not just complimentary. It can not be that my daughter only sees nurse or beautician or teacher as her career. I don't want to stereotype and typecast her into woman only jobs. Nothing wrong with those jobs as such as they also have specific and revered skills. But point is to expose woman to all fields and make her physically and mentally strong without tripping over her choices. She should be comfortable nursing baby as much as she would be riding bullet or even a tank in war-zone. As I was presented her by God, she was and still is soft, emotionally brittle but thankfully having strong and firm opinions. I want to ensure while she enjoys putting nail-polish, she also equally see pulling her socks and climbing a mountain with me in gears. When she will put her foot on sports car gas, no one should be able to tell this is boy or girl driving car. Some people compare girl's delicate nature with flower and there I fear if I am just whacking it up into ruins. She has learnt cycling and swimming and is into initial singing and classical Indian dance stages but there is a lot to do to make sure she becomes a woman that everyone including her are proud of. I want She to be looked as an asset who can contribute towards solution on anything rather than looked upon as a liability who needs to be looked after, guarded.
When the long hairs of Elsa who waits for prince to evacuate her from the captivity of witch hurts me a lot. I don't know if it's my possessive or over excessive strictness that casts the shadow on playing Ira's father role. Even going through mythological stories of draupadi being put on the table as an possession and she helplessly waiting for Krishna to save from her being undressed drains me emotionally. Is that going to be part of story I tell my daughter? Am I not grooming and stereotyping her into shout for help attitude? While it is perfectly all right for child for asking help, how do I make sure she as an adult just becomes self reliant? I sometimes feel, I should let her be what she want to be. But then being dependent and delicate only to be broken by brutal world is not the choice I can offer to her. She must know legends of Zhashi's queen who fought battle with British army with son in monkey sling on the back and sword in hand riding horse. She died but that's one of the few sign of strength when many other kings became toy of British empire.
It is not just a debate or play of word but I really feel if being delicate is being brittle or easy to break. Can the delicate be strong too. Words don't allow it but can woman span both the words in her virtues of personality. So is being soft is opposite to being tough? Is being delicate to opposite to being strong? Is being emotionally and physically sensitive opposite to being strong emotionally? There are instances in nature that don't tally with my idea and nature is largely consistent and truthful. In nature if you observe the seeds, they don't germinate when they are hard like stone. The seed germinates and sapling springs out of only soft seed that is swelled by water and nourishment from ground. The creation happens out of delicate, sensitive things. It's true that the birth or creation requires maximum amount of energy and it only happens via delicate parts in all forms of nature. But then again we don't just have girls as a seed. They are manifestation of life as much as any other organism. They definitely are superior in terms of their ability to give birth. But it still is far from convincing for me that we keep our girls as seed waiting to spring. May be I am over obsessed father but daughters possibly are so complex matter that require due diligence. I hope under the name of due diligence I don't over do my fatherly role
It haunts me many times that am I over-architecting her persona ? Should I just leave her to be what her toys and TV and various movies and history wants her to believe what woman looks like ? Should I leave her to be stereotyped by the societies beliefs and dogma? It's tough choice as the burden of repents from either choice I make will mean I failed my duty towards her as a father. My dilemma probably is best understood by Anagha whom I rarely treated as weaker partner or rather never made her hear the delineation of the responsibilities of man and woman and poor lady had to give her first UK driving license test when she was 8 month into pregnancy. I always felt helping people achieve higher grounds of confidence is better than consoling or chewing their current trauma or situation. Sympathy in my opinion never leaves person giving and taking it any less vulnerable and my whole focus shifts on giving a sad person a view of better side of him and look forward rather than whining about the incidence that left him or her sad.
I don't know how my daughter will have impression about her dad. I think that should not govern how I raise her. It does not matter if she feels the time spent with me are gruesome trainings as long as she gets my shoulder to rest and let go all failures and celebrate her achievements. Again everyone doesn't have to be everything and we just should choose what we are good at. That's a fair argument and probably if a woman chooses to be stereotype waiting to be rescued, you can't do much about it other than guarding her as a liability or an asset. But should parent assume this position from beginning ? My conscious tells I should prepare her for the tough world and not the world where a prince bend on knee and begs for her hand. I mean if prince comes, we will welcome his gesture of bowing down to knee but it's an spectacular failure in my opinion if we raise daughter to believe that. Some people argue restrictions on daughter are because they are precious. I mean come-on they are human beings and should not be overly protective about them because we have failed to raise woman respecting men. Better proposition is to make woman strong to counteract any aggressions she faces rather than shielding her from them. I will continue taking Ira to higher grounds of confidence and self esteem while she enjoys her toys. I have started collecting many stories of inspiring women from history and present. It is heartening to find that some of them became what they are today without outside support. They were guided by their own will and force within. Hopefully those stories will allow Ira to believe she is not limited by anything and can become anything she desires to be. I also keenly look for gender neutral games and toys so that she gets the choice. It is hard and possibly wrong but I will trade on this path until I am convinced I am wrong. Ira is one of such rare character who finds it amazingly easy to convince me to change course. Let's see how things pan out and she grows into a woman that makes her feel proud. While all these things play up in my mind, I am making sure we both enjoy the time we spend together.
Rahul karurkar
