Being judgemental

It's never easy knowing how to balance between extremes when it comes to children. Like many mothers around me, I keep worrying if I am over-indulging my toddler under the name of caring, or coming down too hard on him in the guise of discipline. I make my mistakes, and feel lucky that R is still young enough to let me get away with them.

I recently introduced the concept of 'time-out' / 'corner' to R - the place he is sent to calm down or realise something he did was not very pleasant. He quite defeated the purpose in the beginning by running gleefully to the corner, facing the wall and coming right back to repeat the offending act. When such a time out occured in front of some family friends, they wondered why I was 'punishing' him at such a young age. 'He hardly understands what he is doing', they said. My point exactly. How would he know what he did was not praiseworthy if we didn't point it out. Longwinded, logical cause-effect explanations are not going to cut it with him at 22 months. Knowing that a certain act causes his mommy to be upset might do it. Being removed from the place of activity certainly does it. Am I doing the right thing? Judge away.

Now that R goes to a playgroup, I get a better opportunity to observe other mothers, teachers and their toddlers. Say what you will, but I find myself getting surprisingly judgemental about parents' and teachers' attitudes towards children. I would have thought myself to be the 'Do what works best for you' types, but my parent avatar seems to disagree a bit.

What set off this diatribe today was this - R has a new teacher who in all her gusto to 'teach' seems to me to have forgotten that toddlers hardly need someone chiding them for being who they are. What set me off was when she questioned a wailing tot at that difficult time of drop-off, and not too gently, 'Why are you crying, early in the morning?' Surely no toddler cares for being made to feel at fault when they're already dealing with that emotional mountain of mommy leaving them. It instantly took away my security as a mother. Or was I being too protective? Could it be that toddlers respond better to that no-nonsense approach?

Questions like this one and others wizz around my tired brain, and in the end I just go with the the tried and tested 'mother's instinct'. And care little about being judged :)

From Infant to Toddler...

Days drift by quickly. I keep remembering how life was so simple when A was a baby! I know, I never thought I would say this even though family and friends did their best to warn me. All the advertisements and TV shows showing moms dressed just for the sake formality,  with untamed hair flying in all directions and each of these ladies being brave and bearing all with no trace of make up, makes more sense to me now than ever before. Who cares about dressing up when the option of utilizing the 15 minutes you get is between that and grabbing a bite (or cooking),  while your toddler is busy exploring something. My cynicism surprises me! Me, who always believed in being presentable even when at home.

If you are trying to figure out what the theme for today's rambling is, then don't try too hard. These are as I mentioned in my previous sentence just ramblings..with no particular agenda in mind. I have started wondering too if the blessed feminism is really a blessing? I always envy my mom and all moms of her generation who did not have to struggle with the decision of staying at home and trying to create an identity outside of their home. I think, for them, the decisions were pretty black & white. Most of them ended up being stay home moms and did not have to feel guilty every time their kid fell sick when they had a pressing deadline at work. But does that really give them mental satisfaction ? From what I have seen, a lot of the moms do pride themselves in being there for their little ones and yet in some tiny corner of their hearts they wish that maybe they could have done more with their lives. Don't get me wrong, I am not judging anyone here. I am mostly a stay home mom for now, but I go through the struggle of "to work or not to work" on a daily basis, and I still haven't figured out which is the right way.
But as everyone knows, being a parent is not all gloomy and burdensome. In fact, most of the times you don't even recollect the rough patches your kid goes through growing up. I love the moments I spend with A. His promotion from infant to toddler has brought so many wonderful things with it. It is a pure joy to communicate with him and teach him new things, and the showers of affection you get in return from him are priceless! Everyday is a new day and believe me there is never a dull moment. I have almost given up on TV and surfing the net (which i think is quite evident from my posts here), and have learnt to rediscover childhood with my son. It is amazing how much one tends to enjoy playing with toys or reading kids' storybooks. I realize how different my own childhood was... and yet so much fun. Spending time with A leads me back to the good old innocent days.

So what is there to conclude? I don't know...my mind just keeps wandering these days from one thought to the other  while I keep a close watch on A trying his stunts and making sure everything remains intact.

I was watching an Indian franchise of the popular British reality show 'Celebrity Wife Swap', called 'Maa Exchange', deeply involved in armchair judgements about how two women ran their respective houses. And isn't it always strangely gratifying to declare someone a bad parent, wife or housekeeper from the comfort of your couch? Oh well, that warrants another post by itself!

So, while in one such musing about parenting (the woman gave a two year old a fizzy drink and a bar of chocolate, for God's sake!) that carried on into the commercial break, I saw a typical 'informative' advert (read iffy production quality) that had to be for a govt. Ministry. But the first visual was about breastfeeding, and motherhood makes me take notice of any such material these days. The spot pushed breastfeeding, the importance of a varied diet for toddlers. It was the kind of information that you would pass off as common knowledge usually, if you sat through it at all. And although I suspect it was not really aimed at mommies who run to google 'baby common cold remedy', it was good to see that spot at primetime on an unashamedly commercial channel. But the more I saw it, the more I realised, if I had come across this while expecting little R, I might have better appreciated its value. And this coming from an internet search junkie.

Putting myself in the shoes of to-be or new mothers from the real audience, I could see how useful that spot might really be to a woman in the interiors, say, whose main source of information about babies is her mother-in-law, or her doctor. Would it not feel that much more empowering to know how to care for your baby better? I'm sure it would help counter well-meaning relatives who suggest giving the child roti, ghee and sugar if he refuses veggies or dal! Even if I scoff at the production values of the spot, it condensed the exact same information that I might have discussed/ searched a trillion times about what to feed R and when.

A cursory search (didn't I already mention I'm a Google junkie?) showed me that the Food and Nutrition Board had not only an online presence with nutritional information, but campaigns across communication channels. I personally think it's commendable. If awareness is what it takes to encourage and instill healthy eating habits, they have started on the path.

But given all this, why is it still that India ranks 25th out of 33 nations in child feeding practices? Surely no mother would be found lacking in the will to give her baby the best she can?  Is it a lack of awareness despite these efforts? Or a lack policy and financial support that leads to high infant mortality?

In any case, I hope this current awareness campaign reaches its intended audience and helps not only mothers, but fathers and families to give their babies a healthy start in life. It certainly made me think back on what I fed little R today - did he get his rainbow veggies?



p.s. he did get his veggies..... and his fruit and grains! ;)