The
first statement '"We'd rather spend more on daughter’s wedding than on her
education." stands true.
Not
only that this statement also makes us reflect on lot of stupidities that we
fail to acknowledge leave alone accept and rectify. They can be broadly
classified as
1.
The way we treat small girls either as daughters or as
sisters or as students in schools.
2.
Our obsession with marriage of a girl as if that is the only
role of evolution or social obligation or sacred duty bla bla.
3.
Our lack of attention to our role as a parent. Do we pay the same
amount of attention as give to our profession, hobby etc. Parenting involves
three important Ps:- patience, perception of your child’s/children’s inherent
attributes, passion to participate and enjoy watching them grow.
1. Small girls- how we treat them and why we do so?
We
have to accept with shame that we have not learnt to give them freedom to
enjoy, express and experience life in their own terms with their own sensible
or stupid approaches. We try to monitor, remote control, discipline etc
whatever be the proclaimed justifications; it is still, interfering with the
freedom a soul. So we are all , I mean the elders, especially most Indians are
committing a very big mistake/vice [in in the name of parental responsibility,
social discipline, traditional practices, sometimes in the name of pseudo
religious justifications as well , by not allowing daughters to decide to do things
as they wish.
We
need to realize no human being can control another soul. We also fail to
realize that what we are doing is trying to manufacture a person according to
some preset specifications. Elders can and must give suggestions, some
guidance, sometimes even advice out of their experience, concern, compassion,
interest etc but too much of interference in every move or decisions of the
life of a girl child especially is contributing subconsciously to create a
sense of diffidence, sense of insecurity and inferiority.
If
anyone has bothered to do a real research, not one guided by text books, mostly
written by foreign authors, by merely observing the behavior, smartness of
women, one would be surprised to find that many girls who had irresponsible
parents and not subjected to too much of social conditioning in the name of
taboos etc turn out to be more street smart, more creative, more confident,
more adjusting, more sociable etc.
The
most interesting part of upbringing and parenthood is enjoy the fun of growing
along with them, by all means offering them all the opportunities that one can
afford; interacting with them with interest and involvement; adjusting and
learning with them, reciprocating and rejoicing with them informing through
love your preferences, prejudices, priorities, perceptions and respond with
equal respect to their priorities and perceptions which may look uninteresting,
illogical, useless, irritating, insipid
etc but then they could be feeling the same way about yours.
How
can you expect a small girl not to have certain feelings which you think are
the exclusive preserve of boys? Why should not they have similar feelings and
aspirations? If only the hopeless, senseless and meaningless wastage that
Indians splurge on marriages can be stopped, and that amount accumulated as an
account, then, that can actually make India the richest country in the world.
The
simple statement at the beginning also gives a peep into our pathetic mindset
of not willing to come out of our past and not beginning to carry on life in
the present moment in the present socio-political context.
We
need realize that daughters look forward to your loving participation in their life
not mere instructions and interferences.
2. The marriage obsession
I
wrote this in 1979 after attending a marriage and showed it to my father who
agreed with the contents and not the affected and labored bombastic style but
which was liked by many of my classmates then who laborious copied as we did
not have computers at that time.
3. Parenting
There
are some excellent practical books like this one ‘Your Growing Child: From
Birth to Adolescence By David Fontana’
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