She writes....
Oh god, I can't begin to count the number of people who have given me "important" advice on pregnancy and parenting. Surprisingly, this intrusion of my private life by an absolute stranger did not bother me much when I was pregnant. But boy, am i tired of these preachers questioning my ways of parenting!
I am tired. Sick and tired. When I became pregnant, no wait, when I got married, no wait, long before that, when I was in college, sitting in many of those boring lectures day-dreaming about my life, having children was most certainly a part of it. All my life, I constantly found myself making a mental note of things I would see, "I wouldn't do this when I bring up my child" , "I would certainly encourage my child to do this" etc etc..
All I did during my pregnancy was to dream about my unborn children (Ok, I had twins!) and what kind of mother I would turn out to be. Call it instinct or just plain belief in natural chaos, A MOTHER knows her children, at least until they can speak for themselves.
But nooooooooo, apparently the world knows better. It is expected that I should blindly follow what women did 30 years ago rather than listen to a qualified doctor who just happens to specialize in pediatrics. When I was born, giving powdered milk was in vogue. Infants, just days old, were given sugar syrups/honey (GOD knows why!). Solids were introduced at a tender age of 3 months. Everyone was more concerned about how to wean off the baby from breast milk than to actually focus on giving it when necessary. A crying baby is a hungry baby. A fat and chubby baby is a healthy baby. I could just go on and on and on.
My grandmother once told me that she breastfed her son until 2 years. My pediatrician says that I should exclusively breastfeed my babies for at least 6 months. So you see, somewhere in between, breastfeeding went out of fashion. Somewhere, Cerelac just took over.
I do not blame our previous generation because these things weren't researched and doctors back then weren't informed. The damage had to happen for us to be alerted now. But NO, no amount of WHO posters or warnings from pediatricians can deter the aunties from making us follow their practices today. They cannot see the reason why we are revolting for every single thing. Because, according to them, they are experienced and supposedly "the experts" in this business. But, parenting is not a "constant" , it is a "variable". IT changes with time. It is closely associated with how the world changes. Today, I am exposed to more pollution than I was 30 years back. Today, my world is more warmer than it was 30 years back. Today, there are millions of new diseases than there were 30 years back. So obviously, the method had to change. Children had to be brought up in the way that they could adapt to this world. Not the world of 1980's.
So No, I DO NOT want to put kajal on my newborn son's eyes. It is a chemical that my child doesn't need to endure and please, its not even pretty!
Stop this parent shaming. Stop judging us. Let us be the parents that we want to be. Let us make our mistakes. We love our children and every single atom that we move is for their good. Thirty years from now, things could change again, I could be wrong and trust me when I say this, I would happily embrace the change then.
Can you now ?
We want to see them to grow up to be better human beings. We don't want them to be our clones !
Oh god, I can't begin to count the number of people who have given me "important" advice on pregnancy and parenting. Surprisingly, this intrusion of my private life by an absolute stranger did not bother me much when I was pregnant. But boy, am i tired of these preachers questioning my ways of parenting!
I am tired. Sick and tired. When I became pregnant, no wait, when I got married, no wait, long before that, when I was in college, sitting in many of those boring lectures day-dreaming about my life, having children was most certainly a part of it. All my life, I constantly found myself making a mental note of things I would see, "I wouldn't do this when I bring up my child" , "I would certainly encourage my child to do this" etc etc..
All I did during my pregnancy was to dream about my unborn children (Ok, I had twins!) and what kind of mother I would turn out to be. Call it instinct or just plain belief in natural chaos, A MOTHER knows her children, at least until they can speak for themselves.
But nooooooooo, apparently the world knows better. It is expected that I should blindly follow what women did 30 years ago rather than listen to a qualified doctor who just happens to specialize in pediatrics. When I was born, giving powdered milk was in vogue. Infants, just days old, were given sugar syrups/honey (GOD knows why!). Solids were introduced at a tender age of 3 months. Everyone was more concerned about how to wean off the baby from breast milk than to actually focus on giving it when necessary. A crying baby is a hungry baby. A fat and chubby baby is a healthy baby. I could just go on and on and on.
My grandmother once told me that she breastfed her son until 2 years. My pediatrician says that I should exclusively breastfeed my babies for at least 6 months. So you see, somewhere in between, breastfeeding went out of fashion. Somewhere, Cerelac just took over.
I do not blame our previous generation because these things weren't researched and doctors back then weren't informed. The damage had to happen for us to be alerted now. But NO, no amount of WHO posters or warnings from pediatricians can deter the aunties from making us follow their practices today. They cannot see the reason why we are revolting for every single thing. Because, according to them, they are experienced and supposedly "the experts" in this business. But, parenting is not a "constant" , it is a "variable". IT changes with time. It is closely associated with how the world changes. Today, I am exposed to more pollution than I was 30 years back. Today, my world is more warmer than it was 30 years back. Today, there are millions of new diseases than there were 30 years back. So obviously, the method had to change. Children had to be brought up in the way that they could adapt to this world. Not the world of 1980's.
So No, I DO NOT want to put kajal on my newborn son's eyes. It is a chemical that my child doesn't need to endure and please, its not even pretty!
Stop this parent shaming. Stop judging us. Let us be the parents that we want to be. Let us make our mistakes. We love our children and every single atom that we move is for their good. Thirty years from now, things could change again, I could be wrong and trust me when I say this, I would happily embrace the change then.
Can you now ?
We want to see them to grow up to be better human beings. We don't want them to be our clones !
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