Learning To Frame

K and his wife M were in town this past weekend and when they called to say hello, we invited them over for dinner. K and DB went to school together and were meeting after twenty years. The couple has led a very interesting life and I was looking forward to meeting them.We chatted over chai and snacks and then DB did the obligatory tour of the house. He was really looking forward to showing them some of J's artwork that we have framed and hung on the walls of the office. 

He is incredibly proud of the child's artistic abilities and at times acts like an over-indulgent dad of the worst kind. That evening he was having one of his moments. J enjoys the adulation and I am happy for her - I do believe at least one parent must openly demonstrate pride in their child. It is then okay for the other to be a little reticent and keep things in balance. So while DB pulls the stops on occasion, I make it a point never to do so. 

K indulged us and gushed over how nice the pictures were. DB was all smiles and J looked quite pleased with herself. When the three of them left the room to go upstairs, M pulled me aside to let me know that I should never buy new picture frames on the cheap pointing to one example in the hallway. She exhorted me to check out flea markets for better frames I could buy for the same price and definitely mat every picture before framing. It makes all the difference. She had nothing to say about the artwork at all.

I have to admit I was more than a little taken aback.This is the first time I am meeting this person and  had not asked for an opinion on the aesthetics of my picture frames relative to their price point.A child had drawn these pictures between ages seven and nine and we put it up on our walls because we thought she had done a really fine job for her age. It is our way of encouraging her. I did not have the heart to tell M that every picture does not benefit from a mat and when it comes to artistic sensibility our mileage may vary.

Every room she stepped into she had some advice for me on how to improve it without breaking the bank.The conversations with M left me pondering about how we receive advice and information in our lives. She had a lot of both to share and if I could get over feeling hurt by her not noticing J's efforts, I may have learned several things. Maybe because I never allow myself the freedom to indulge J as lavishly as DB does, I am quicker to hurt over perceived slights. If I could reign my emotions in better, I may learn a lot more from the world around me. As a test, I plan to learn the art of matting from M.

Slipping Up

As a parent, one is required to dole out punishment in proportion to the offense. Nothing confuses a child more when such is not the case. What seems so self-evident is often hard to practice in real life unless you happen to be the perfect parent. I have slipped up on this rule several time in the last ten years that I have been J's mom. 

Back in the day, I attributed it to unmanaged stress, having too many balls to juggle and no one to help - to err was human . With DB coming into my life and taking on the responsibilities of the dad J never had, I no longer have the same excuses. And yet, I ranted at her furiously for ten minutes straight while driving her over to her friend's birthday party. 

As her life has become more and more "regular" ( two parents, a home instead of an apartment, multiple vacations in a year, a closet full of clothes, more media and electronics than she has ever had ), J has relaxed. Used to be that she thought it was her responsibility to work around the constraints of my "situation". She bore it without complaint or question - at the cost of thwarting the natural flow of her childhood. That has since changed - J now has the ability to be a child and a tween, act up sometimes in ways that drives us crazy. Her offense was just that - she was being her age. I read into in quite a bit more than I should have, did not react until the tenth repeat of the offense. Basically, she had no idea she had been doing wrong until I blew up - suddenly and uncontrollably.

I came home and shared with DB - told him that I felt like a monster for saying cruel and hurtful words to J; I feared that what I said may leave scars for life. He advised not to apologize to her to make it right. "Talk to her about how her behavior disappointed you and that you got really frustrated. Let her talk about how she felt. The love you have for each other is too strong a force for something like this to weaken it" and then when I felt a little better he added "Extend the most patience you have to J - that way you will not have such severe reactions" 

When I tucked J in at night, we had talked about it - she realized where she had been wrong and what she could do different. I told her that we could not pretend that I did not say what I said or that she did not feel what she felt - we had to acknowledge that. Despite my failings, I felt well loved - by J and by DB and I was very grateful for that.

Two Roads

Read this article about two paths to marital happiness - either have no kids at all or have a whole bunch of them. Doing something in between apparently does not bode well for a couple's happiness. This is how the plight of folks such as myself is described :

Attempting to balance being an autonomous individual and a social animal produces a kind of incoherence that leads to misery. You're constantly confused and being pushed in different directions.  You can't even explain to people who you are.

I find that to be a harsh indictment. In the modern world where a village is often lacking to help with the raising of our children, bringing up four or more of them is no walk in the park. One has to assume that one or both parents have to go to work to put food on the table -in either case, the time and energy required to raise the children is seriously diminished. I am not sure how a perpetually over-worked, at-capacity couple can have a great marriage - where would they find the time to nurture their relationship ?

The distinction between an autonomous individual and a social individual does not make sense either. To be a social animal (a parent) an adult has to be an autonomous individual first - they have to be functional and competent independently before they can take responsibility for any number of offspring. I am not sure that it is actually possible to be one or the other. As for the incoherence leading to misery - it could be argued that a social animal without a well developed autonomous individuality could be even more so and fall apart under the demands of  parenting four or more children

Mildly Complicit

Recently J told me about a profitable little business enterprise that a kid in her class has been running. He makes paper guns and sells them at a quarter a pop. The paper bullets are sold for ten cents a piece. By her accounting, he has sold at least ten guns.A couple of issues were bothering her - is this kind of activity allowed in school and is it fair for the boy to sell these things for real money.

She does not want to be the tattle tale and report him to the teacher because both the gun and bullet are harmless. Apparently, all the kids know about it but no has taken it upon themselves to inform the teacher. I am guessing like J, they must have mentioned this to their parents, and like me, those parents have not recommended that their child talk to the teacher about this. I find this whole situation intriguing at many different levels. The kids are in the least considering this a little outside the ordinary and  likely talking about this at home. They are not convinced that it is bad enough that the boy needs to reported - there is symmetry in their thought process. If that is true about the adults as well,they maybe chalking this up to a kid being silly and creative, having a little harmless fun -  expecting it will go away once the novelty has faded.

J has not talked about this in the last couple of weeks so it is quite possible that all potential buyers have already made their purchases and better yet reverse engineered it to make their own.This incident had me wondering if we as parents are sometimes complicit in bad outcomes in the lives of our children.As a group we failed to call this child's attention to something that may not be entirely cute, creative or silly. Maybe we have provided tacit encouragement as a group for him to up the ante some more.

Comfort Zone

J can be the life of the party at home but will turn into a little mouse in school. This has been her way for the last couple of years or maybe we have noticed it more since that time - DB and I would love to see some of that fun, vibrant and somewhat theatrical personality she displays at home to make its way to the classroom as well. But that has yet to happen. We recently signed her up for drama class and she is having the best time of her life there. 

Even with that, the mouse at school is yet to transform into something bigger and bolder. I spoke with her guidance counselor this morning and she said something that helped recalibrate my expectations about J. 

Ms K said that no matter how hard you push and how hard you try as a parent, there is little you can do to change  what is innately the child's personality. J may never be able to be her most natural self outside the comfort zone of home. She will benefit from us encouraging her to be more assertive, being front and center of things instead of hiding somewhere no one can see her and most importantly advocating for herself. Yes, the drama lessons will help too. She will do a little of everything that we would like for her to do but it may never be to the extent that we believe she is capable of based on what we see of her at home. This is something we as parents will learn to accept and move on. 

Hearing Ms K helped me in several ways - for one thing, I will not be so quick to be disappointed with J when she struggles disproportionately (in my mind) to speak up, assert and advocate herself. More importantly, I will ask her to take on smaller challenges to build up her strength - I will continue to push as I have always done but more in the form of gentle  nudges than a big shove in the direction I want her to go. I hope in time, J will have acquired the confidence to be bring that much bigger personality she has to bear upon the mouse simply because being her natural self would be more fun and relaxing.

Idefinitely Wounded

Since she was a baby, J would unaccountably turn delerious with joy - her exurberance was so contagious that it was impossible for anyone to feel blue around her. Today was one of those days. I pray that she always has the ability to be happy for no reason at all.

Reading this Atlantic article about the correlation between early adversity and depression, planted a little seed of fear in my heart. J has known more than her fair share of "early adversity". I was so consumed by doing all that it took to provide for her basic needs and stay gainfully employed that I was never able to be a real mother to her. My attention span for her was non-existent, it took very little provocation for me to become really angry and I never felt well rested. She learned to entertain herself, make do with very little and make the most of what few opportunities came her way. She learned to survive and thrive in a situation that was less than ideal.

With DB coming into our lives, it fell on J once again to cope with change and uncertainty and all things considered, she did remarkably well. In the last several months, my attention has been divided between a new spouse, career transitition and home buying. J adjusted to my (and our) circumstances as she always has. Today, I paused to wonder what the cost of that adjustment might have been. Seeing her being irrationally exurberant today was a reminder of my responsibility - she has a precious gift that I have to protect and keep out of harm's way. If I failed, I would be identifintely wounded.

Hardening

At the kernel of J is a very headstrong person. She was that even at a few months old. There would be no kicking and screaming to protest but she would resolutely hold her ground and do exactly what she had set out to do. In the last few months, DB and I have noticed a more concerning variation on the theme of "resolute". When we are upset with her for any reason, she switches off emotionally and presents a stone cold persona that nothing can touch. Our words and remonstrations mean nothing to her at that point - it is like we have lost all contact with the child and yet she is sitting right across from us at the dinner table. The snapping of connection is as sudden as it is complete and it leaves us at our wits end. Yesterday DB tried a different way to get to the bottom of this change. After the moment of disagreement had passed, he started a casual conversation with her and soon she had regained her usual animation. Once he had her full attention, he started probing a little into her how she had been feeling lately - about herself, about us as a family and so on.

We were able to piece together quite a bit on what she said. In the early days of our marriage, DB and I would often get into arguments - we are both highly independent and strong-willed people so it took a lot of doing to stop getting at each others' throats. In a snap, all the love, affection and respect would disappear and we'd be absolutely infuriated with each other. Until that time, J had never seen a man around the house, never seen me as a married woman and had no idea of what may or may not be normal between two parents. I had forgotten what it was to adjust to another adult or accept a way of life very different from my own. So here we were, DB and I shaking out a brand new marriage with a completely confused eight year old looking on.

She said, she had no idea what would happen next. She was scared a lot and worried about what the future held for her. She was no longer sure about Mommy because Mommy was acting out in ways she had never known her to in her entire life. The only way she knew to protect herself was to harden, to become tough so  nothing could touch her. She had gone into self-preservation mode and this was the only defense mechanism she knew.

The marriage is a year old now, DB and I have defined the rules of engagement and we don't squabble over every little thing. The communication between us is not perfect but we recognize it right away when there is a problem and make the effort to correct it. The arguments when they happen are not nearly as intense and J carries on treating it like background noise. She has learned to cope, carved a safe haven for herself in past year's turmoil to the point that I feel like I have to re-discover the child I gave birth to.

I was once her source of strength and the person in charge of her life. In the past year fallen from grace. J has seen the weak, vulnerable and often emotionally volatile side of me. The rite of passage DB and I have been through in year one is completely normal in a new marriage except if this had been our first, J would not have been around quite yet to be impacted by it. I will do everything I can to right course with her from here on out but cannot turn the clock back. I hope watching the initial adjustment stage of a relationship and seeing it grow stronger as a result gives her something of value that she can use in her own life - at least that's how I try to rationalize what I cannot change no matter how much I want to

Motherhood

This mother's day for the first time in my life, I was given the full on star treatment that mothers get on Mother's Day. In years past, J would do her very best to make me something special - a piece of art, coupons I could trade for favors like two huggies and such other cuteness. She would worry that she was not doing nearly enough for me because other kids had dads or other adults around who could help them out. I could not assure her one big hug from her is was the best gift I could get and indeed that alone was enough. 

After enjoying a big breakfast made by DB and J, I was out in the world today watching other mothers enjoying their stardom. Somewhere between breakfast, a visit to the fine arts museum and lunch, I responded to one blogger friend's request for six words to describe your mother. Mine were : Sunshine and lightning arrestor of pain. Later in the day another blogger recommended reading a poignant piece on motherhood. Reading these lines in the article was like listening to DB speak in the early days of our marriage : 

Because if mothers don't teach their children how to be happy by example, who will? Maybe a mother's legacy -- along with unconditional love -- should include a lesson in self-preservation. Selfishness

He said the same thing in the context of my tendency to visit the sum total of my life's disappointments upon our then brand new marriage. I had of my own free will decided to give up a decade of my life for J's benefit. In doing so, I had abandoned the pursuit of my own dreams and happiness. Everything for "me" had to be on hold, until J was well situated. As it turns out that process was still not complete when DB and I married. It was only when he started asking me " What do you want to do to make you happy ?" that I realized I was so far gone that I could no longer define it.  My life's purpose was so entwined with J that I could not extricate "myself" from it. Somewhere in that dense tangle of objectives was my personal happiness strand - too trivial to stand alone, choked out of life by everything else.

Instead of rejoicing in the support I now had from DB and making the most of it to pursue my unfulfilled goals, I became paralyzed realizing that "I" did not exist anymore. I would have to work really hard to find this person, remember what she once dreamed about and overcome the dead-weight of inertia to make some of them come to life. Indeed, I had done J and I great disservice in casting myself in the traditional mold of the martyr - like my mother and mothers before her - lightning arrestors of pain. Unlike her, I am a perhaps a little short on the sunshine. While I had never sought the martyr mantle for myself and have a healthy disdain for parents who assume one, I was failing in my fundamental responsibility as a mother - teaching J how to be happy and find happiness.

Work Not Pleasure

For the first time this year, J had to study for a test and the we discovered she had no idea how to study for one. This came as a revelation to me and my first instinct was to panic. DB was a little bemused by the whole situation and asked the obvious "How would you expect her to know what to do when you've never showed her how ?" By the time I was J's age, I was veteran test taker. In India a nine year old does not remember a time when they did not take tests. I must have been taught in my time too but was so young that I have no recollection of it - I thought that test taking is instinctive not much different from breathing. We are now working with J, teaching her some basic skills she will need to succeed as a student.

Reading this article about how the educational crisis in America is a moral and not a monetary one, struck a deep chord in the context of my recent challenges. J's complete unpreparedness for test taking in fourth grade is a telling example of schools making the "mildest demands" on students.

We have gone from a culture where real demands were made on students at home and in school to one where homes and schools make only the mildest demands on children. Instead adults have become eager providers of their children’s natural, but endless, appetite for pleasure. 

The point is not that kids are rotten and teachers are lazy and parents are idiots. Rather, that we have created the wrong child-raising culture and the results are clearly confirming that.  

For parents who are trying to correct course at home, the task is a daunting one. The social expectation of us is to be providers of entertainment and pleasure to the kids.When we do very little of that and try to fill the gaping voids in their education instead, our efforts are met with a lot of resistance. J may appreciate my efforts in later life, but right now Mommy is a mostly an insufferable nag, a demanding task master and just does not know how to have fun. Unfortunately for me, most of my peers are exceptionally good at being entertainers to their kids. Sadly for J, she will grow up feeling she did not have nearly as much fun as most other kids she knows.

Talking About Money

For over eight years as a single parent, I straddled the fine line between talking too little or too much about finances with J. I was determined that she never felt "poor" in a material sense though I frequently over-compensated with emotional comfort just in case she did. To that end, J has never had (and to her credit, asked for) a lot of anything - clothes, books, toys and more. Instead I took time to do bead work on a plain white tee, embellished a jean jacket with embroidery and sewed on colorful patchwork on her jeans - there was a little bit of me in everything that was J's. 

She has always had enough to be comfortable but not to become and extension of my ego dolled up in designer couture. I pride myself on being economical without being stingy but these measures are completely subjective. My friend or neighbor may have an entirely different view of me than I do of myself. DB for instance thinks I don't give the child nearly enough and that this a tender age - my "frugality" may end up hurting her confidence as she is not able to be as well-heeled as her peers when I have the wherewithal to give her a lot more than I do.

As a compromise, J has come into some spiffy new clothes - I notice that she is happy to have them but coming as late as they have in her childhood, she is not entirely beholden to them. I am staying true to my principle of building in her a sense of style that transcends the dictates of peer pressure and fleeting fashion trends. DB says that I am way too demanding of a child less than ten years old and am pushing her to becoming an outlier. I don't agree with the first part of his observation but when it comes to style, I would love nothing more than for J to find a niche that is exclusively her own and cannot be imitated. If that means becoming an outlier, so be it. As we shift and change to accommodate the other's views, J experiencing the shifting tides too.  

This post was triggered by reading this article about what not to say to your kids about money. It was relieving in some sense to know that I have not said any of the supposedly wrong things to J. The issue of clothing and related self-esteem is something I continue to think about - at what point does it stop being about J and become about what her parents want to project about themselves ? What is the best way for J to blend in with her peer groups, without sacrificing her individuality or becoming one of the herd ? 

While I may not agree with DB's assessment, he does give me food for thought and I am very happy for that.

PTA Blues

This is J’s fifth year in elementary school and for the first time this year I became a PTA member. As a single parent, I lacked  the capacity to take on any volunteer responsibilities that took time away from my never ending list of  to-dos. I figured with DB in the picture, I might have more latitude and dove in to the deep end of the pool when I announced my desire to take on some work to help as a PTA volunteer. I have to admit, I received a warm welcome as the PTA is always scrounging for volunteers. Back home, J and  DB were excited for me.

My first assignment was to do the monthly newsletter. Seemed like a walk in the park – I would get inserts from about six sources, I could pick out a template and combine the material. Since there was no editing involved, I was toying with the idea of an  Macro to pull the pieces and assemble the newsletter. The work would be a matter of few clicks I had a whole month to do this. 

At the risk of getting ahead of myself I was wondering if I could get one of the geeks at work to set me up with something like Silverstripe so that the contributors of the inserts could post their content online have the newsletter be generated automatically that the print shop could then print off of.

A day after I had been assigned my duties, another lady whom I will refer to as F volunteered for the same job and to spare us both any hurt feelings, the volunteer coordinator asked that we work on this gig as a team. In the first email, F wrote the following :

I also volunteered for the newsletter :). How would you like to work it out? We can alternate months...When I was in the Army I did the FRG newsletter and loved it. Please give me a call if you have time and we can talk more :)

When I read that note, my sense was that F really wanted this job to herself and wanted me out of her business. Against my better judgment, I decided to call her and work out how we could work on this thing together. In what would later prove to be a  career limiting move, I told her that I was impressed by her prior experience with newsletters and would love to learn from her on the job. F had at that point already picked out a template in some obscure publishing software that believed would be perfect for the job at hand. Sadly it could not be converted into something conventional like Word – but she’d be glad to give it a shot.

Within days she had produced a top-notch newsletter, taken it to the printer’s shop and had copies made for the entire school. The speed and the level of efficiency was astounding to say the least. There was no way I was going to pull off something even close the next month. I could now see the error of my hide-bound ways – foolishly trying to empower the users with open source content management software when they had this formidable human newsletter generator going at a hundred miles a minute and delighting in the experience.

Almost masochistically at this point, I tried to convert F’s  template and find something like it in Word and when all failed , in a final act of desperation reached out to her for help. She had in the meanwhile left me a voice mail message advising me to begin work on the next month’s newsletter as time was running out. I realized at this point she had taken the leadership role very seriously. A few days later, I had to throw in the towel and wrote this to the volunteer coordinator

F  has a great format for the Newsletter that requires software that I do not have  - we have not been able to convert her template to Word. I think it will work out best if F does the newsletters going forward.
I would love to volunteer for anything else that I have the skills to help out with.

I had forgotten what it feels like to be kicked out of the proverbial sand-box and my first foray into the world of PTA brought back memories of grade school. I am beginning to realize it is a certain type of person that makes a great volunteer like F and I just do not fit the profile. I lack the intensity, don’t derive a huge amount of satisfaction by doing this job and finally don’t believe in the agenda of this PTA.

I am an outsider who tried to step into the magic circle and had my hand resoundingly slapped. As for the volunteer coordinator, she continues to preserve an icy silence that I can only take to mean that I have been banished from the playground and not just the sandbox. Thanks to me, F must have moved a few notches up the PTA totem pole and for that I am very happy – she definitely deserves it.

No Short Cuts

Dom Testa's post Short Cuts is just the kind of thing kids should read or if they are too young to understand have a parent help them. This article also resonates with Testa's goal for his organization :

He founded The Big Brain Club, a community project of The Big Brain Foundation, to help kids overcome the peer pressure they feel to dumb down. Young people often believe that they have to choose between being cool and using their brains. Dom’s message is simple: You can do both!

He cites the example of Michael Phelps and Conan O'Brien to make his case about years of blood, sweat and tears resulting in huge payouts in later life. They would both fit the cool bill and clearly have had to use their brains to get where they are in their lives.

Realizing the importance of "coolness" in a kid's social standing, I always try to impress upon J the importance of having a distinctive personal style - not only in what one wears but in how they conduct themselves. Cool does not get any cooler than that I tell her.

Learning By Example

For the last eight years that I have raised J alone, I craved an adult couterpoint to my parenting worldview. When in doubt, I had to second guess myself or ask another parent who knew close to nothing about J's temperament or our domestic dynamic. Advice I realized quickly cannot be provided in vaccuum. It is of limited value and cannot be applied as is to the situation at hand.

With the coming of DB into our household,  I now have the much desired second opinion  and I find myself feeling a myraid of less than positive emotions in reaction to anything he has to say on the subject of J. To my prejudiced ears, a lot of what DB says sounds straight out of parenting coaching manuals am prompt to reject it. Had he rasied any kids of his own, I would have felt different.

As with any offhand rejection there is more than a little bathwaterism involved in the process. On several occassions, DB draws from his own life experience - growing up without the kind of parental support and supervision he wanted, he has an unique vantage point. He knows what did not work for him as a child. I struggle to parse out of DB's commentary on my parenting style, anything that I can accept without prejudice, assign it the necessary importance and most importantly bring about the change in myself that would influence J's life positively. While I am not able to do that immediately, I find it easier to observe his interactions with J and compare the differences between how each of us operates. By observing J's reaction, I am sometimes able to find a flaw in my way. 

Divafication

Waiting my turn at the community microwave at work a few days ago, I leafed through the pages of an old Newsweek. A line in an article on the pre-mature diva-fication of little girls made me pause. The author quotes a mother  :

"My daughter is 8, and she's like, so into this stuff it's unbelievable," says Anna Solomon, a Brooklyn social worker. "From the clothes to the hair to the nails, school is like No. 10 on the list of priorities."

No matter how hard you try to pin the blame on media and society at large , the problem clearly lies with the parent and not with the child who has placed education number 10 in their list of priorities.I know mothers who take their kindergärtners out to get pedicures and manicure to say nothing of professional hair styling on a regular basis. The kids are not begging their parents for any of this. They are quite happy being kids. It is the parent that is not allowing them to do so.

It seems that it is the vanity of the parents (and maybe their own lack of satisfaction with their physical appearance and/or social status) that nudges them toward diva-fication of their children. Over time the situation spins out of control. A few years down the line, the kid will throw a fit if their hair is not styled right and their French manicure is lacking in quality - they are merely being creatures of habit. If the parent had taken a detour from the diva route and got the child interested in other things - education, art, sports, music - come to mind but a slew of other wholesome options exist as well, they would have ended up having entirely different set of priorities. 

It is a pity that authors of such articles don't take the trouble to make the responsible party feel like they have a big part in the problem and have the ability to fix it even as the tween pageants dominate prime time television. Instead we have this ludicrous hand-wringing on behalf of parents who don't deserve any of the commiseration.

Third Place

My mother taught me the importance of gratitude for what has been blessed with in life as early as I was able to appreciate what that meant. She has always been the kind of person that will confront their own negativity and not give up until they have overcome it. She is a source of energy that replenishes itself and gives generously to those who wish to draw form it.  Any time I am feeling low, I just need to call and talk to her for bit and I experience a world of difference. How she does this without draining her own reserves of strength and optimism, I don't know but it is something I have always depended on.

J takes after my mother in temperament and it takes a lot to get her down. But when on occassion she does feel bummed out, it is well beyond my capacity to get her to snap out of it. As she grows older, I find her seeking refuge in books - she loves reading and reads voraciously. Sometimes, I might suggest a movie she may enjoy watching and that could be her escape too. It is a trait she shares with me. The best way to let J work through her mood, I have found is to let her finish what she is reading or watching. She is in her third place with the cast of characters in her book or movie forming the social community. She comes out of it happier and at peace with herself.

I realize I have to build my own reserves to play in J's life the role my mother has played in mine. While having one's own sanctuary is a wonderful thing and I am grateful she has hers, there is something special about being able to connect to a loved one and feel emotionally rejuvenated in the process.

Talking Perfection

A few months ago, I ran into a girl I went to high school with at the mall. I was amazed that she was even able to recognize me after all these years. Once she told me who she was, I was able to as well but would have not done so otherwise. Her son is a year younger than J and was there along with her husband. After introductions were made, we found a place to sit and chat while the husband watched the kids.

She and I were acquaintances at best back then and the passage of time had certainly not done anything to either of us to be able to turn that to real friendship. Since she is plugged and connected via Facebook, Orkut and the like, she brought me up to speed on our former classmates - who lived and worked where, who they were married to, how many kids they had and more. We exchanged emails and phone number and promised to stay in touch.

One evening, a few days ago she called me and I have to admit I was surprised. The status update had already happened - she knew my co-ordinates and about my marital status. I did not think there was anything else about me that she may find worth knowing about. Surely, it must have been passed around on the grapevine by now and the network was just as well-informed as she was. I had assumed they had collectively moved on to others who were still not on the radar.

After some talk about the weather, she launched into the topic of the day. For close to two hours, I was regaled with anecdotes about her prodigiously gifted seven year old. It seemed to me that the stories grew more and more embellished as she rolled along. At first he was reading five years ahead of his grade level, then he was trilingual and then he learned new languages all by himself, was a science and math whiz, played several musical instruments, wise beyond belief - and much more. There was no end to the child's innate perfection. It is completely possible that all that she had to say about her son is true - I have had the good fortune of knowing several exceptionally wonderful children myself. I could however sense an undertone to this recitative.

The day we had met, she kept telling me how lucky I was to have the courage to leave R (my ex) and strike out on my own. Not every woman in the same situation could do that. I happened to tell her how for over a year of my marriage I deluded myself and people close to me that I was incredibly happy, living with a man who was beyond perfect for me.

I was just lucky to have an epiphany before it was too late. Any time I see a woman gushing about how incredibly happy she is with her man, I feel a twinge of anxiety because I know how that ended up for me. The best marriages tend to be understated - there is not a lot of exhibitionism or playing to the gallery. The couple exudes a sense of peace and belonging together. They would very likely not make a spectacle of their marital bliss like I once did and like I see many do.

Notably, she made no mention of husband or marriage but focused obsessively on her son for two whole hours she was on the phone. If she was trying to prove that she had won the mommy sweepstakes, she did not have to try so hard. I am perfectly willing to believe that there are the most amazing kids in the world and there is no reason why she and her husband could not have given birth to one. While it makes them very lucky, it is also a big responsibility because that amount of talent is not easy to harness guide and in a positive direction.

If I could have given her a piece of advise, I might have told her not to obsesses over the perfection of her child to the point he believed that the love of his mother was contingent on his ability to meet or exceed her expectations. There was not one funny or cute baby story she had to share - everything was about exceptional intelligence and achievement. Even the most perfect child cannot become recompense for a less than satisfactory marriage - the two are different things and cannot be used to offset the effects of each other. I got the sense that she was deeply disappointed for not getting the reaction from me that she had hoped for - one of jealousy or incredulity. If I know anything about human nature, I will not hear from her again.

Defiance

Between age three and four, J had gone through a period of defiant behavior. She simply did not want to follow instructions and would do her best to annoy me. It was a little game of testing boundaries to see where the yield point lay.

I started off by ignoring her hoping that things would resolve themselves that way. Instead she upped the ante some to ensure that she had my attention. I changed strategy at that point and decided to talk through it (as difficult as that was given her age at the time) - being mad at her was just making things worse. So using a variety of ways ranging between halfway sensible and downright idiotic, I was able to rein J in - for the time. I did not want to push too hard fearing that she may clam up completely or would have no spirit left.

Defiance is back again these days. It will be over small things. I view it as her way to assert her identity as different from mine and one she wants to define independent of my guidance - and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Whatever methods worked four years ago, do not any more.

One morning while walking her to the bus stop, I asked J if it was tempting to annoy me and do things I would not approve of just because. "For no real reason". She grudgingly admitted that was true. Sometimes she was just annoyed about it having to be my way and not hers even when she knew mine was the better way. I told her it may be a lot more satisfying and interesting for her, if she chose her battles well - not just with me but with anyone she intended to defy. Some things are too trivial to do war over - it is wasted time and energy for the most part. If she was smart, she'd not concern herself with those but really stand up for what she believed in when it actually mattered.

I explained to J that there is a difference between being mulish and having determination. Defiance just for the sake of it was more former and less later. In the long run, it made the person hard to like and get along with. Besides, they may have made some really poor choices because they were not using their brains and defying everything instinctively. Determination on the other hand is what it takes for a person to beat the odds in their life and come out successful - it is a quality worth cultivating. 

By when I had reached this point, the school bus had come. We did not continue this conversation in days that followed. From what I know of J, sowing the germs of an idea in her head is often the best way to get her to think about it - and hopefully react to it. She will tune off quickly if I belabor it.

This is merely round two and she is all of eight years old. Makes me wonder about what is yet to come and if I will know how to deal with the bigger challenges that lie ahead.

Food Temptations

J eyed the hot food bar at a grocery store in my neighborhood longingly and asked if we could take some home for dinner. It was a colorful, varied and attractive assortment of food so I could see how she may have been tempted. We were both tired and more than a little hungry at the time. She could not wait to taste it once we got home and I arranged a small portions of everything we had bought on her dinner plate. After a few mouth fulls, J scrunched up her nose and said "I don't like it one bit. It's not what I thought it would taste like. If I eat any more of this, I'll throw up".

From extreme anticipation and love, it had gone to that must distaste and rejection within a few minutes. I could help but feel amused at the dramatic change of heart. She asked me to fix her a very simple Bengali staple for dinner which I did. This is the second time, J has fallen prey to food presented in a way that looks tempting and found out that appearance and taste can be quite some distance apart. The meal I cooked for her, did not look nearly as great as what we had brought home and did not call for any exceptional ingredients but  J relished it - it was her comfort food. After she went to bed, I wondered if this may have been a good time to talk to her about Shreya and Preya - a very fundamental tenet of the value system I would want her to have as she grows up.  

Recess Coach

Just when you think you've heard all there was to say about modern childhood, along comes something new - a recess coach. Kids cannot be counted on to either behave well on their own or respect the authority figures in school. Enter the recess coach to enforce compliance. Who ever thought this up first has got to be a genius.

Here is yet another example of adult intervention to solve problems they helped created for kids. When we decide to structure our childrens' time to the point that they have no room left in their lives to be fancy-free and run wild like we did as kids, we stunt their emotional and social development. They may come out the other side of childhood with a lot of extra curricular accomplishments but without have experienced some of the simplest joys of being a child.

If I want J to go out and play in the evenings, I have to make phone calls to parents to see if anyone's child is available to play. Used to in my time, that a bunch of kids would come knocking at the door asking me to come out and play. We would go around the neighborhood, collecting our buddies and head for the nearby park or even someone's backyard. There was no order or structure to our games and definitely no adult supervision. We did have our bullies and pushovers but can't recall even one instance where it became necessary for an adult to come in and resolve conflict. Unless someone got hurt accidentally, there was never a need for adult involvement.

J's generation will grow up never having experienced this. Instead they will have play dates and now recess coaches to help them socialize with their peers.I can't begin to count in how many ways this is a bad idea for the children. If only we would leave them alone and let them be the way nature intended for kids to be, life would be so much better.

Engineer Barbie

Since J has never been interested in Barbies, I have not worried about the baleful influence of this doll on my daughter's body image. With computer engineer Barbie being the career of the next doll in the series, things may change. In her new incarnation, Barbie will be both impossibly beautiful and smart - pushing the level of unrealism about her to a new high.

As long as little girls treat her as no different than any other toy they have, there is no harm done in amping up her perfection. But Barbie has unfortunately long held the reputation of being a bad influence on young girls. So giving geeks a turn under the spotlight by way of Barbie is probably not going to help their case much - it may actually have the opposite result. Their smarts will now need to come packaged like this doll for them to be considered sexy, attractive geeks.

Since style wins over substance when it comes to Barbie, the chances of  the comp sci Barbie propelling  pretty girls with no interest in math and science, into this profession might be minimal. If they already look like Barbie, they've got nothing else to aspire for.