Parenting has no prescriptions

When Pattimandram speakers resort to preachy populist rants.

Over simplified and excessively generalized sermonizing without factoring in the overall generational changes in socio-psychologiacl attitudes is per se, in my opinion, not correct and is at best a stereotyped populist rant which may be appealing to some selected audience.

Parenting is neither an issue nor an event nor a problem but it is an ever functioning personal emotional relationship which cannot be codified through any generalization or over simplification by means of any profusion of suggestions and diffusion of emotional binding.

Parenting involves too many things with too much of involvement

 Parenting is an area where any particular aspect of various degrees of manifestations of love and control [ranging from pampering to over controlling] can be emphasized at the cost of another.

  Almost all parents do almost many things according to circumstances social, familial, economic etc not according to any prescription.

 However, it would be a good thing to listen to others, learn from many and leverage our understanding of the multiple dimensions of this nice relationship.

 Wiser parenting, in my personal opinion is involving without interfering, motivating without manipulating, allowing independent and interdependent individual growth to unleash its own melodies rather than orchestrating to our tunes.

 That’s why children born to and brought up the same parents in the same way act differently, perform differently and prosper differently and clearly that reveals one can neither blame nor admire the parents for the differences.

 Parent child relationship is one among the many relationships that need to be experienced and enjoyed and not used as a joy stick to control the game of life.

 Impersonal Universal self [with whatever nomenclature - God, Soul, and Divinity - we want to believe in or disbelieve in it totally] which operates through each body-mind organism will take care of the appropriate harmony.

Parenting and Individual human being

 Every individual human being is a package by itself with a unique physical frame, psychological perspective, inherited/injected emotions, if we believe a life force or soul or whatever we wish to call it which has to blossom and experience life in its own with all its pleasures and pains which no one else can experience but at best be spectator  willingly or unwillingly.

 Unfortunately what most parents do is trying to live vicariously through their children their own aspirations or a life which they wanted but could not without realizing their children have a life of their own.

 So, strictly speaking parenting after donating a sperm and leasing a womb and initially taking care of the physical well being of the Child is all about weaving meaningful and mutually respectable relationships psychologically factoring in many socio-cultural changes and the generational differences. All of these are easily said than done because the emotional bonds and the innate parental expectations will mostly cloud many things and project only our interests, intentions prompted by our notions of their [our children’s] well being.

 Probably our role is restricted to inculcating humane values, and attitudes based on that, so that there is a socio-cultural harmony in living as a species.

 PARENTING FROM VARIOUS PERSPECTIVES-  with the onus of imparting values to children.

 As I see it this article throws up many issues than one from a larger perspective.

       When we become parents we notice and observe more deeply and keenly, involve in everything with greater commitment, think profoundly, turn more possessive, act carefully and more importantly become too conscious of the chronology of our life etc. In a way we grow into a new human being mostly for the better. So, in a way parenting is one of the great metamorphoses of human life.

       We teach many things to children as moral correctness and morally wrong as if they are static and everlasting axiomatic certitudes. We fail to realize that morality is mostly, and rightly so, contextual rather than a set of static rules written down by scriptures, religions, cultures, society etc.  There are no perennial taboos or trends.

       Any relationship and the most important aspect of life itself is spontaneous psychological reciprocation or reaction. Deal with children with love and they will reciprocate with love and love a universal and reusable syringe through which one can inject any good value or many nice values for life.    

        Parenting is an opportunity to enjoy life with a new relationship by making a matured and pleasant journey with a less aged and less matured person understanding, adjusting to his/her whims and fancies with all the parental concerns and pampering and also assuaging his/her  unhappy moments without preventing him/her  from realizing that unhappiness is also an inevitable part of life, do our best to minimize it by many means but at the same time not totally masking a factual situation or stark reality with our overbearing emotional or sentimental affection, sometimes at the cost of inconvenience to others.

        Parenting never stops in the mind of the parent: - initially it is an obsessive occupation with a combination of irritations and interesting things, and then it becomes a routine responsibility, slowly recedes into receptive spectator-ship but always remains a relationship working with renewed vigor at every juncture.

        All good values like kindness, humaneness, sharing and caring etc must be made to percolate through our actions and interactions with others because the first best means of learning for any child either verbal or action is through imitation and not through listening to preaching or teaching, though they can be used later on. I think practicing these values are more important than exposing children to any religion or ritual because living requires good qualities and values which contribute to good natural habits not necessarily socially accepted practices. This is both psychological process and sociological outcome as very well explained in Micromotives and Macrobehavior by THOMAS C. SCHELLING. He explains how most adults and the whole society actually make imitation into an almost a collective behavior.

  “That kind of analysis explores the relation between the behavior characteristics of the individuals   who comprise some social aggregate, and the characteristics of the aggregate…. This analysis   sometimes uses what is known about individual intentions to predict the aggregates:…. People are   responding to an environment that consists of other people responding to their environment, which   consists of people responding to an environment of people's responses……. To make that   connection  we usually have to look at the system of interaction between individuals and their     environment, that is, between individuals and other individuals or between individuals and the     collectivity.”

       Very often parental expectations, enthusiasm, emotions etc coupled with social pressures, approvals and appreciations may end up parents not noticing the inherent attributes i.e. strengths and weaknesses of children and therefore not doing anything to promote or prevent them from manifesting as they ought to in natural course.

        Of course, no parent would like to promote or parade a child’s weakness; they may at best minimize or mitigate it. If it is physical attend to it medically and if it is psychological or emotional then at least one parent must spend time and communicate verbally/emotionally/psychologically etc with the child to gradually improve its attitude to minimize such weaknesses. For strengths expose the child to the opportunities that a parent can afford..

  Therefore,  knowing the innate attributes and keying in the important attitudes are vital aspects of parenthood.

        Values of life are initially imitated then gradually get inculcated and remain inside the self and it is better that way rather than through indoctrination injected to keep intact any specific cultural, social or religious identity. Ultimately the values that are inherited through imitation initially manifest in or as habits in later years rather than whatever one learns through instruction. As Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina states, “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”. I would like to state that:- All nice parents have children with nice habits; every child with a nasty habit has a nasty parent invariably.

        As they grow into adults, of course, if personal responsibility, independence, confidence, clarity of perception etc have also been aspects of value system that as parents we have followed they would know, learn or at least struggle and strive to learn to lead a life.

  So, as adults our children emerge hatched once again with capabilities to lead a life and also live a life.

   Most parents are keener on equipping and therefore preoccupied with the child to lead a good life in terms of the survival aspect of life, they hardly pay attention to the living aspect of living a life happily.

  Parenting involves too many things with too much of involvement. Many of which are contradictions, blatant manifestations of hypocrisy etc. Still, they all work together with too many strong ,personal , interpersonal emotions like care, concern, some amount of possessiveness, obsessive protectionism, sentimentalism, indescribable love which does not seek reciprocation, being and wanting to be physically and mentally available , wanting and willing to eagerly participate in the growth and evolution of the children etc. All of these can be realized only when one is a parent.

   However, the following advice brings some sanity to otherwise too involved parenting. " When you parent, it’s crucial you realize you aren’t raising a ‘mini me’ but a spirit throbbing with its own Signtaure"- Dr. Shefali Tsabary. This is nothing but what JK used to say as 'allowing the inward flowering'.

  Parenting very often does not know to differentiate between involvement and intrusion.

  All said and done life is best ensconced only in the warmth of parental love which can be taken for granted at any circumstance.

  When people whose parents are no more alive think about them, fond memories cascade down the spine and fine feelings gush up the spine and both together flood the heart and choke the throat. We all need to relish with love the relationship of our parents for whatever they did or did not or could not do and as parents let us do whatever we can to our children with love,

  Discipline is an inner stuff and it grows with a sense of responsibility [response-  ability] and personal experience and understanding and self realization the hard way and can never be imposed externally, at least with me it has never worked.

Children -the great teachers

Above all children resort to unending unbiased unleashing of a barrage of questions, which grown up people soaked in prejudices of many meaningless traditions and rituals [which the elders /grown ups conveniently term as social values] find awkward to face. 

 Children rip apart all questionable values , hypocrisy, contradictions which may cause uneasiness to conjure up a convincing answer but clears up many blocks in our inner consciousness to help us come out of our strong fortress of identities built scrupulously over so many years. 

 It is no wonder that a great poet has said, ' Child is the father of the man'. But for this to happen, a sort of reciprocal benefit to both, parents must give full freedom to children and also allow them to come up with their own way of expressing and communicating with all others around. 

 However, unfortunately both the family and society, wrongly and very often do not entertain this.

 Some books like the following one get skipped even by many search engines on child care and parenting, it is worth reading besides the topic, merely for its excellent presentation of various aspects like a detailed text book- it is an excellent practical book which I have read twice and strongly   recommend it.

 ‘Your Growing Child: From Birth to Adolescence By David Fontana’

 and another good one is

 Parenting With Love and Logic by  Foster W.   Cline, Jim Fay

Of course the following link gives a good selection

https://www.thecut.com/article/the-only-20-parenting-books-worth-your-time.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2016/04/parenting-and-individual-human-being.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2016/04/parenting-various-dimensionsdynamics.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2015/05/parenting-from-various-perspectives.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2014/12/parenting.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2014/01/parenting-and-youth.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2013/07/teenagers-parenting-hormonal-rush.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2016/04/parenting-and-individual-liberty.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2015/09/parents-entire-gamut.html

Technology we cannot avoid it

Sense and sense of balance are necessary to deal with anything.

Many things, species, activities, issues etc emerge as part of evolution, not necessarily according to our wishes, whims and wants.

We need to learn to adopt, adjust and create synergy to make the best use of them all.

We must not either lament about the things replaced by the emergence of something new or misuse the newly emerged aspect of anything/ technology.

Technology is one such thing.

Every stride of it has only enabled humanity to make a huge leap forward.

Without the microscope we would not have even known properly the minute aspects of our own physical make up.

https://contentwriteups.blogspot.com/2016/09/technology-cannot-be-avoided.html?m=0

Elaborate explanation of brevity

                  Elaborate explanation of brevity –Part-1

I would like to elaborate on the actual meaning of ‘brevity’.

While everyone agrees that moderation is the sign of sanity but context is the deciding factor in vicinity and visibility.

Wise political strategy requires venting of natural mass emotions and also moderating it with voices of moderation from higher authorities.

When we ‘quote’ something it conveys what we want much better /effectively than what we may have to struggle to come out with an articulation of our own.

But the problem with quotes is that when they are used to convey the hidden intentions the covering up becomes conspicuous at least in contours [perhaps like the hidden anatomy of heroines in rain drenched transparent cloths of Bollywood  films].

Even Shakespeare made it very clear that ‘Brevity is the soul of wit’ please note he meant only ‘soul of wit’ and not in anything else.

Perhaps we may add brevity in emergency situations or for reasons of diplomatic wheedling where the recipients are made to get embroiled in multiple interpretations.

But definitely brevity is not meant for any detailed and planned military operations or the resultant expressions of spontaneous eruption of emotions [joy or sorrow], more so, when they manifest as mass euphoria or mass frenzy due to the much awaited paradigm shift in attitude of often  ending  up in a situation where each one of us say desperately or out of indifference say, as very well conveyed in this quote,  ‘I don't have a solution but I admire the problem’. The function of genius is not to give new answers, but to pose new questions - which time and mediocrity can solve.-Hugh Trevor-Roper - Men and Event

Elaborate explanation of brevity  part -2

Basically human beings are animalistic by instinct and impulse but use or expected to use or obliged to use the sixth sense when they want to become or be or behave like a social beings.

There has been initially some over dosage of war and victory in the whole of history.

Then slowly the intellectual giants injected through epics and myths wisdom and values as justifications to ensure that humanity accepted wisdom and values as inevitable dosage of medicines in order to evolve as better social beings to lead life together with all other species with some ethics and rules.

This, I feel was perhaps the larger intention and subtle message of all epics, and not prowess in archery or skill in using all sorts of crude weapons for gruesome results or for cinematic effects.

It is all well known that whenever there is a victory or success in any field of activity people go gaga over it and also resort to all sorts of claims.

It happens when any country wins a game of football or cricket and it is nothing but a manifestation of jubilation.

To my knowledge Shakespeare himself, had he been brief in debating over the dead body of Julius Caesar the world would have lost one of the most inspiring speeches by Mark Antony and the others  and also lost a marvelous piece of literature and multiple templates for logical and emotional justifications.

What about Shakespeare’s famous soliloquies and sermonizing speeches of his characters.

If brevity alone has been insisted as in SMS or Twitter, then, perhaps, only didactic sermons would have survived and all literature buried; only poetry would have survived and not music and songs; only bed rooms would have existed and not wedding celebrations; only dictates of powerful leaders and not political speeches and debates; only barter system and not the complicated economic structures and so on.

We need to remember over simplifying, over generalizing and over homogenization are all against natural evolution.

Brevity in many contexts is like raw vegetables and plants, one cannot eat them as they are; they need elaborate cooking and attractive dressing combined with the aroma of enticing spices.

Shakespeare whose ‘brevity is the soul of wit’ is often quoted out of context.

Shakespeare himself  knew that his spontaneity of expression and elaborate exhibition of emotions of his characters needed lot of elaboration and realized that even the existing vocabulary of the language was  inadequate that he ended up coining at least 1700 new words and expressions and introduced them into the English language which ultimately enriched both the language and literature.

It was good that he never misunderstood the meaning of brevity out of context.

Can anyone define the ‘brevity’ or at least recommend it in all contexts.

Had Lord Krishna chosen to be brief, in fact that is the expected line of activity in crisis, and instructed Arjuna to just go and plunder the enemy with arrows the world would not have got the Bhagawat Geetha running into several chapters of great philosophy.

The world would have been deprived of  great rational and philosophical lecture on professional integrity if the architect in Ayn Rand’s Fountain head just said he wanted to do this or that ,instead of  elaborating the reasons.

Elaboration is both excellent and inevitable [1]

Even abbreviated attire is recommended for swimming [gender neutral] not while strolling in chill weather.

On what basis can 

one decide brevity?

I can furnish single sentences, meaningful ones, not the unpunctuated ones like mine, which run to pages.

So, can someone produce one such sentence and claim that he has been brief as he has used only one sentence. [2]

The level of enthusiasm and exaggeration varies from individual to individual and from context to context when it comes to expressing and communicating.

Stories of revenge and restoring relatively better option through all means, sometimes involving violence as a means,   fills the pages of history of humanity and is also the main plot in many epics be it Ramayana or Mahabhratha.

In all such episodes in history and epics there has always been celebration of victory and condemnation of defeat.

Both are wrong and everyone who can pitch in either in main stream media or social media have their right to express their opinion in their own way, of course, with the rider, to ensure that whatever they say does not ignite further trouble or foment more violent reaction and escalate animosity.

But then in success and victory always as a rule covers all blunders. When India wins a match no one question about shot selection of a number 10 batsman.

                                 Elaborate explanation of brevity-part -3

Editor’s dilemma is in determining the length of a sentence and extent of elaboration of any idea.

When I saw this post about the problems faced by editors I was travelling with very low battery but noted that I must debate on this issue.

Editing is important, some cases inevitable too and in certain cases renders a work more interesting through fine tuning and chaffing of the unnecessary frills covering the important substance or subject.

But how much is too much and who gets the privilege of deciding that.

Whether editing must be used as a nail filer or as a vegetable or fruit skin peeler or as a surgical knife or as a lumber jack to fine tune a presentation.

All artists in all forms of art create or render their works as a flow of their creative expression involving the romance between the medium with all its techniques and tools and what the artist wants to express using them.

We can see this romance in alapana [elaboration in music], a painter splashing multiple colors , a photographer taking photos from various angles, a writer weaving multiple expressions to express ideas, thoughts, descriptions and so on.

Every phrase in an alapana, every line or colour in a painting, every expression in writing, even the redundant ones or synonyms may have popped out of certain nuances that must have struck a chord in the mind of the artist/writer.

That’s why editing is a very delicate job like tight rope walking- the emphasis of focus is on balance than on exuberance or exhibition and ultimate aim is to ensure that final output is enjoyable or useful to the intended recipient.

When I see a movie like PINK PANTHER I am in total admiration of the editor; when I see Sivaji Ganesan’s over acting I feel that both the director and editor have failed miserably; when I see excessive, unwarranted, repetitive long winded dialogues in Indian movies it is irritating.

However, when Semmangudi elaborates a raga in alapana or a Madurai Mani Iyer repeats certain kalpana swaras, when J.Krishnamurthy or Osho repeat certain intrinsically valuable philosophical truths in different ways , when Shakespeare’s or Kalidasa’s plays delve into multiple descriptions I would love to savor them in all their entirety as many times as I can.

Life after all is a collation of repetitions. Repetitions of various kinds and intensities and which could be categorized as inevitable, interesting and incorrigible.

As in many other realms of life, editing and determining the length of a sentence too, our attitude is, inevitably one that is ambivalent.

Here is what I wrote on three topics of remote relevance to the subject of discussion

1. Length of a sentence

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2015/11/length-of-sentence-in-language.html

2. Need for elaboration

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2015/11/elaboration-is-indeed-important.html

3. Repetition- the predominant factor of life

 http://idiomsidiomsalltheway.blogspot.in/2012/04/23again-and-again-repeatedly.html

Once I had an argument with an editor, I told her , well I thought writing a cheque in your name for hundred thousand rupees i.e. 100,000 but then I edited and removed the four zeros which I felt were a mere repetition.

                          Elaborate explanation of brevity-part -4

Why we have too many activities in wedding/marriage ceremony most of which do not matter at all?

Why did not the religions just convey in one line sermons like Avaiyar or Saint Tiruvalluvar and instead opted for not only voluminous scriptures and also created many epics and mythological characters? Even with such elaboration, interpreting religious scripture is a billion dollar business in all religions.

Why in military they just stop with teaching only how to operate weapons but also subject one to rigorous repetitive drills? Most activities are dominated more by frills and drills.

Why can’t sport men just made to go and play instead we subject them to so many physical and psychological toughness testing drills?

Why cannot we just teach someone when he can understand how to build a bridge?

Why must we make him study 12 years of all stuff which he may never use in his life and another few years of useless studies?

Why the hell did Shakespeare tell just that Romeo and Juliet were romantic lovers, instead wrote such a long poetry to understand which I had to read a dozen guides?

Life itself is confusingly perceived and lived, though unfortunately, more through its ambience than what it really is. Jaggi Vasudev explains it very nicely.

It is all because to ensure that we never omit any micro detail and at the same time ignore to have a macro view and as a result perception becomes encyclopedic.

"The simplicities of natural laws arise through the complexities of the language we use for their expression."- Eugene Wigner 

I firmly believe at least while discussing certain subjects in what Dobelli says, ‘In the Art of Thinking clearly’ "With journalists, it is more difficult. Some have acquired true knowledge. Often they are veteran reporters who have specialized for years in a clearly defined area. They make a serious effort to understand the complexity of a subject and to communicate it. They tend to write long articles that highlight a variety of cases and exceptions.”

"Abandon the urge to simplify everything, to look for formulas and easy answers, and to begin to think multidimensionally, to glory in the mystery and paradoxes of life, not to be dismayed by the multitude of causes and consequences that are inherent in each experience -- to appreciate the fact that life is complex."- M. Scott Peck

"Existence consists in the interplay of a plurality of elements whose true nature is indescribable and whose source is unknown. Combinations of these elements instantaneously flash into existence and instantaneously disappear, to be succeeded by new combinations of elements appearing in a strict causality." - Earle Ernst, The Kabuki Theatre

"To make progress in understanding all this, we probably need to begin with simplified (oversimplified?) models and ignore the critics' tirade that the real world is more complex. The real world is always more complex, which has the advantage that we shan't run out of work."- John Ball, 1984, Memes as Replicators, Ethology and Sociobiology, Vol. 5

This is why Raga alapana in music and foreplay in sex are also considered as an important component.

Everything has its own influence and impact. So, we can neither deny nor defy the importance of anything nor can we even claim to know/ understand or define everything.

Abbreviation is good in satire and sometimes in attire and in retorts but never in serious discussions.

Music in essence

First let us not give undue publicity to anyone.

Second such a person needs to be rescued from his penchant to rush to conclusions and pronouncements with his pseudo knowledge of the subject.

Anyone who cannot understand and evaluate the art and science of music from its various dimensions inherently and intrinsically musical per se, and then, study as well the relevance of lyrics [not music] in/with contextual perspective is not worth giving importance.

Looking at, evaluating and interpreting anything with different, varied and newer perspectives has to emerge and to be encouraged.

However, if it gets down to mere verbalization depriving the subject matter of its essence /inherent attribute /intrinsic value then such observations have to be dismissed.

This is where sometimes one is forced to go back with humility to refer to certain scholarly souls who have documented the greatness of many things in proper perspective unsullied by any personal ideological extrapolation.

One such work is by a pilot by profession but the depth and bandwidth of his knowledge, grasping power, understanding and the ability to communicate all of them in a very poetic and romantic prose as well, is in the works of Guy Murchie.[I am referring to this author here because of the subject matter music.

In his wonderful book 'The Seven Mysteries of Life' , [ I have read it at least 10 times ] perhaps the first single book to write about evolutionary biology, evolutionary sociology, evolutionary psychology, evolutionary linguistic skills etc. He places music as the ultimate mystery and manifestation of divinity because it can through its vibrations and frequencies touch the inner chords of many species.

Similarly, even to understand what goes on in the mind of a creative music composer cannot be analysed on a laboratory table through dissection.

The dynamics of creativity evolve, often even without, beyond and besides the conscious awareness based attempts of the creative composer.

Sullivan in his small book on the biography of Beethovan has attempted to make a wonderful study of the psychology of Beethovan's creative instinct.

Beethoven: His Spiritual Development by J. W. N. Sullivan

Music is both Jagath seva and Jaganatha seva.

As Jagath seva it entertains and engages human emotions and attention and as Jaganatha seva it re- links the inner self with some superior self /selves/ supramental realm and for those initiated through religion into devotion -which is nothing but an obsessively desirous and focused attention and concentrated activity or thought process with total intensity and intense totality.

Re-link is Latin Re-ligere from which the word RELIGION relinking of the individual soul with a universal soul [ Jeevathma with paramathma].