Back To School

“Can I wear this right now, Mom?” My seven year old son asked me at the checkout counter, fully expecting me to say no. He had a brand new back pack in one hand and a big bag full of folders and pencils and supplies in the other. I started to say no, out of habit, but I stopped myself. His enthusiasm and genuine excitement rubbed off on me and we walked out of the store with him wearing a new jacket and an empty backpack on his back.

     In case you missed all the advertisements, it is Back to School season! With just a week left to go before school starts, we braved the pouring rain and similarly motivated families to go shopping for clothes and school supplies. The atmosphere in the store was akin to Christmas. Bright signs and flags marked the way to a large section of the store dedicated to Back to School items. Some frequently bought items were packaged together into convenient bundles for hassle free shopping. There were three or four rows of shelves for just binders and folders. Pencils, crayons, markers and sharpeners were spilling out of cleverly placed end caps. Overall there was a mood of gaiety and celebration all around. 

     This made me think about my back to school routine. I spent most of my childhood in a small south Indian town which had one hospital, four churches, two temples, a small vegetable market, one bakery and one stationary/book store. Summer vacation ended around the last week of May and we made that first trip to the school, before the school began, to get our school uniforms. That was the beginning of the week long ritual to get ready for the new school year.  A list of textbooks and notebooks was provided by the school but everything else was optional and left entirely to the financial ability of one’s parents. Pencils were mandatory till the third grade and after that; we could only use fountain pens. That meant bottles of nasty smelling Camel brand blue ink also made their way into the shopping bags. Backpacks were made of durable canvas and were available in basic colors such as black, blue, beige etc.  Pencil boxes were fashion accessories. In the higher grades, we had to buy the geometry box with a compass, divider, ruler, Set Square, protractor, eraser and a pencil sharpener. Mechanical pencils were a big deal, available in bright colors and usually “imported”.  Being that the highly anticipated southwest monsoon usually made its entrance around the same time as the school started, raincoats and umbrellas were a necessary purchase. A stop at the local Bata store for a pair of black lace shoes and white socks completed the shopping trip.

      The second part of the ritual was a family affair. We would lay out the books to be covered and labeled. Rolls of brown paper were taken out along with sheets of name labels. My parents would cut out the brown paper needed for covering each book and meticulously cover and tape that book. Warnings on keeping the books neat and organized ensued. When they thought I was old enough, I was trusted to cover my own books and a few of my younger brother’s. There were single lined notebooks for Social Studies and Science, four-lined books for English and two-lined books for the two local languages, Hindi and Malayalam.  While my parents worked hard to make them look academically dignified, I would open up textbooks and browse through lessons on the Human Body, Differentiation, Robert Frost and the vast maze of newsprint that was to be my companion for the next year. The final touch was the label. Very basic in form, this was a rectangular piece of paper with pre-printed lines for Name, Std., Section, School and Subject. With each passing year, new and exciting innovations occurred in the field of the labels. One year it was sticker labels while another was all about Mickey and Minnie and Donald Duck or bright floral prints or cute animal themes. My father would then write our names, proudly and neatly, on these labels, with more instructions and warnings to keep the covers and labels on the books at least till the first Terminal examination. Then all the books and pencil boxes were put away in the respective schoolbags, awaiting the start of yet another exciting year.

       The school lists have changed, the supplies options have upgraded significantly but the excitement and anticipation of going to a new class with some old and some new friends, is still the same. For my children, at this age when getting the right pencil grips, erasers and sharpeners is as critical as finding out who will sit with you in the class and on the school bus, which kid you will have to avoid and what the new teacher will be like, back to school shopping is an important event, as it was for me. I am looking forward to the new school year and I smile as we join this last minute frenzy of back-to-school celebration. 

A Mother's Manifesto

My dear children

I am scared. I am scared of the world around us today. It seems everyday we wake up to another natural disaster, another war or another tragedy ruining the lives of millions of people around the Earth. We are running out of natural resources, we are running out of money, we are polluting the Earth, we are in the process of wiping out many species from the face of this earth. It seems people are getting sadder and lonelier with each passing year. I am scared of the state we are leaving the Earth in, for you. With all the technological achievements, we still cannot stop people from dying of a mosquito bite! The gap between the have's and have-nots is ever expanding throughout the globe. Everything just seems to be spinning out of control!! However, there is something I have control over - our lives together. When you were born, I was overwhelmed to think that I was going to be responsible for raising you to be an individual all in your own right, someone who can function normally and productivley in a society and lead a happy life. Over the years, I have learned that this is a partnership. I have taken cues from you and changed my opinions about doing things a certain way. We have started this wonderfuljourney together and its time we put down a manuscript for this adventure. Here are the things that I, as a mother, promise to do for you :

- You will always have unconditional and unending love from me.

-I will not expect anything but excellence from you in everything you do, so that you may never expect mediocrity from yourselves.

- I will never assume that you cannot do something until you have tried it and put in your very best.

-I will not limit you to my own knowledge. I will share all that I have and then search far and wide to get you more and as you get older, teach you how to find your own information.

-I may be busy but never too busy to hear you. In our conversations, I will pay complete attention to you so that you know what you are saying is important. I will also teach you how important it is to listen while the other person is talking.

-I will love you father with all my heart and be true in my relationships so you can experience the pleasure of family.

-I will explore with you everything this world has to offer in all of the areas of the arts so that you can start your own journeys.

-I will make sure you sample every cuisine in this world before you are 18, so that you will have a well-developed palate by the time you are ready to go out into the world on your own.

- I will let you experience the bliss of reading a book in a quiet house on a school-day afternoon

-I will take you on trips around the world and into the next-door woods, so you can experience the majesty of nature in all of its forms.

-I will share with you the joy of sports-playing, watching, the thrill of the win and disappointment of the loss.

-I will discipline you even if it makes me cry inside - I will have to be the parent then, not a friend.

-I will try very hard to not pass on my bias and judgmental feelings about issues to you but let you make up your own minds.

-I will never be judgmental when it comes to you.

-I will make sure you know where you come from-your family history, the struggles and triumphs of your family members so you have a sense of pride in your roots even if you are far removed from them.

-I will remind you, everyday, how special you are and that the pursuit and enjoyment of happiness is entirely in your hands.

All this will not be easy. All this is probably going to take a long time. But as I often experienced when I lie down on the bed and think about my day, the moments that bring me the greatest peace and happiness are the ones spent with you. And that makes it all worth the while.

In conversation with…….

I have been accused to talking too much-with my children! It has been said that both of them (ages 6 and 3) talk so much and are so precocious because I talk to them about things they have no business knowing about. Point taken. Please allow me to present my case.

I agree that I talk a lot with my kids (I talk a lot, in general) and that to an untrained, illiterate eye, they might seem precocious . But I believe that my children are developing at a rate and extent faster and deeper than their peers because of their exposure to things that children of their age usually do not even know about.

Case in point: My 6 year old son and I were talking about the Civil War and then the Civil rights movements in the context of a project for the Black History month in his school. When we were talking about segregation, he asked “So what was the problem Indians had in those days, Mom? ( he meant Indians as in from India). I told him that the problem Indians had at that time in history was that they were ruled by the British and there was a war of independence going on. Then we discussed the colonization of the various princely states that made up India by the British rulers and how the in-fighting among the various kings made it easy for the British to “divide and rule”. After a while, I could see that his attention was wandering and that it was getting to be too much information for him and we ended the conversation. Later that day him and his sister were having an argument over the Pokemon cards and he says to her , “ You are invading my territory. You just want more and more and that is why you are fighting with me!” So, the conversation was not wasted after all!

One question that bothers parents is that in the trouble-prone pre-adolescent and adolescent years will their children come able to come to them for help if they need? Will there be proper communication between the two that the child will not feel intimidated or embarrassed in opening up or questioning something that may be bothering him? As with every other relationship, communication is the back bone of a successful parent-child partnership. But if you wait for the child to be “mature” enough to handle conversations you are too late. From the time a child is born she is processing information according to the capacity of her developing brain. It is a well established fact that the more you talk to your infant or toddler the quicker and deeper the child’s development is in areas of talking and vocabulary. Using normal language when talking to an infant is better for teaching him language than using “baby” words for “milk” and “blanket” and so on. The same premise should be carried over as the child grows. Conventional wisdom may suggest that certain topics are too complicated for a preschooler or grade school age kid to to comprehend. But whether it is slavery or global warming, evolution of humans or even death, there is a way of explaining the facts in an age-appropriate manner. Kids may not understand everything that is thrown at them but the exposure guarantees a reaction in terms of thinking about the topic which can lead to creative and analytical thinking. And when this kind of exposure happens in their daily life, with parents, the stage is set for a lifelong open channel between the parent and the child which can foster communication forever.

So, as we discuss the merits of having a Raichu Pokemon card versus a Meowth I hope that he won't hesitate about telling me of the day when he was offered a cigarette by his friend or when he got a Valentine from the cutest girl in his class.