On being a 'silly' parent

There’s things you can’t ever learn from parenting books, or even (gasp!) babycentre.in, the site I recommend to everyone having a baby.

Although they all talk about the need to be ‘silly’, it’s like telling someone to be ‘funny’. Unless you’ve had parents who giggled and laughed, you can’t be ‘silly’ or have a sense of humour. Even though I do have such parents, I’ve often been told I need to lighten up – that’s part of my personality. Here’s where I’m glad I have my parents around while I parent my toddler. Their silly reactions to situations are enlightening, and I realize that I would not on my own react that way.

For example – one day in the hall as my then two year old painstakingly put the last block on his ever so tall tower, it all came crashing down. In the few moments that followed – I saw his emotion of anger and frustration surface, but pause as he looked around to see how the adults would react. My natural reaction (as tutored by my reading on acknowledging children’s feelings) would have been to be like this – “awww….never mind, come I’ll help you build it up again”. Before I could act, both my mom and dad clapped excitedly and said “Yay…good job….you made it all fall down! Did you see that?” And then my son started building the tower again – just to knock it down and clap excitedly.

The end behavior that we both wanted was the same – to get him to get over his anger and redo the really difficult task. Only mine would have reinforced the concept of failure, while theirs made the failure a success. Over the next year, he built so many towers, with the great joy of knocking them down, and I know that this reaction was the defining moment that set his attitude.

Being silly is such an invaluable parenting tool.  I learn this over and over as I see my mom stick her tongue out, make up nonsense words, resort to tickling and giggle at really really bad jokes that revolve around poop and pee. Now whenever there’s an ego clash stand off and I can’t reason with a three year old, or he’s too tired to understand his feelings, I resort to silliness.

Sometimes even when I’ve had a tough day at work and feel the pressure of coming home to be a ‘parent’, I kick off a silly rumble on the bed or floor that usually ends in nonsense talk and tickling, and you know what, I feel better too. Maybe silliness is not only for children.

 

 

 

 

 

'Maternal Instinct' is a myth.

It's a daring thing to say, but as soon as we all realize that maternal instinct is a myth, it brings parenting to a place of equal opportunities. I'll explain.

Being a 'Mother', 'Ma', or 'Amma' in India has been only a woman's role, and has even been sanctified to the place where everyone now believes that only a mother can truly 'understand'. Even women of today subscribe to this belief, perhaps to protect a domain where they have complete control, or just from the fact that there has been no other point of view aired or accepted.

When a new born baby is put into your arms, despite everything we think we know and are prepared for, the one thing that most women know for sure is the niggling truth that she knows nothing about this little stranger. Then from a force of pure instinct, she knows she must care for it, and protect it. Then she sets about figuring it out. Now  I'm willing to bet that every dad who has been a primary caregiver, or who has been a single father with no family support will tell you that this is the exact same experience they have as well.

It's instinct, for sure, but not maternal. It's more about intuition, and this is a word that we understand now with every smartphone and piece of technology trying to be more and more 'intuitive'. What's intuition? It's the knowing and understanding someone so well that you can predict their behavior and needs.

In caring for a child, this intuition is only fostered by the sheer amount of time you spend with the child. This is why moms have traditionally understood their children better. I give you an example, when my son was an infant, we had sleepless nights, like any other parent. There were nights when he would simply cry. We'd check off everything - he was fed, burped, no fever, clean diapers, not cold, not warm....there was simply no rational reason. All moms get to this point, and then realize that there is nothing to be done except hold the baby, sing songs or make soothing noises and wait it out. Now this is where endurance kicks in because that baby could cry nonstop for three or more hours. Somewhere in those three hours, after getting to a place where you have resisted the strangely real urge to shake the baby, even the most rational person is 'willing' the child to be comforted, and resorting to spiritual recourse. But when the child eventually sleeps, you know. You know that you can always comfort this child, it just needs so much patience and commitment.

That was a long anecdote, but there's a point. In this experience of trying to soothe a nonstop crying colicky baby, most often a dad would give up in 30 minutes, hand over the baby to mom with the argument that maybe nursing was the answer. And so I've heard from several of my friends who are men, "No, he will only sleep when his mom puts him to sleep". or "She keeps crying with me, she wants her mom." Not true. I've seen my husband wait out those three hours, determined to comfort our son, I've seen my father sit up at 3.00am in his bed, prop his grandsons on his lap and wait it out until sunrise, I've seen some husbands pace around the hall through the night carrying the child....They get it. There's no maternal instinct, just determination and commitment. They are rewarded too - an infant builds trust in any adult who can wait them out, and as their trust grows, the all night crying reduces.

Parenthood is a learning experience, and when we women give up our proprietary rights to 'maternal instinct' and knowing it all then it becomes a shared learning experience. We share our theories, our frustrations, we both apply much thought into what is good for the child. Because we are both involved, our understanding of the child is the same. So many times I've seen occasions where the mother has one perception of the child and the father has another, and then it becomes a competition about who is right, and children are master manipulators ready to play the situation. The experience of caregiving is so powerful and rewarding, that choices are then made not based on stereotype, but on individual aspirations of members in the family. A father may want to spend more time at home, so opt for a job that is less demanding, thus also creating the need for his wife to work so that they can manage as a family. A mother may go to work with no preoccupation of who is looking after her child, and find a sense of self outside of her family.

I believe that this is a choice that women must make - in letting go, and including their partners. It's threatening, yes, and not the easiest decision to hold back and not take over complete caregiving. But it's the single most important and best parenting decision I have ever made and had to stand by many times in our son's first few years - to resist the urge to show I know more or better, and simply say when being asked how to look after our son, "I don't know. Maybe we could try this, or that, but really I have no clue."