Parenting under surveillance

I was teaching math addition to my 4 year old the other day. I gave him 2 cookies and asked –

Me – "I had given you 1 cookie yesterday and I gave you 2 cookies today. How many cookies do you have?"

My son – 2 cookies.

Then I tried the same using pencils. I gave him 1 pencil and then gave 2 more. He counted 3. I tried it with crayons and he counted 3. Then I got back to my question on cookies.

Me – I gave you 1 cookie yesterday and 2 today. How many do you have?

My son – 2 cookies.

I put up 3 fingers saying each finger is a cookie and asked him to count. He counted 3 and said “But I have only 2 cookies papa”. I asked him how. He said – “I already eat the cookie you gave me yesterday”. He paused for a few mins and added “remember you said think”.

I was trying to teach him math and he thought me logic.

I was speechless but have now learnt to expect such answers from my kids. They sometimes amaze me into thinking how do they even come up with some of the answers they give or some of the questions they ask.

I had to drop my daughter for a class this morning and my son too accompanied us in the car. While coming back home, my son sat in the rear car seat diagonally opposite to me. He had got his steering wheel toy with him which is a steering wheel and a gear shift that makes different sounds when moved. My son was watching me drive and was steering his toy wheel in the same way as I was doing. He said “papa, I want to drive a car like you when I grow up”. I was almost about to tell him that maybe there will be no cars with a steering wheel by the time he grows up, but stopped myself.

It then occurred to me. Maybe my kids are not learning much by listening to me. Maybe my kids are learning more by watching me; Or rather by observing me. As I thought about this I realized they have been giving me subtle hints all these years but I never realized this until now. Every time they said “I want to be like you when I grow up”, “I want to work on computer like papa”, “I want to drive a car like papa”, … this is what they were doing. They have been observing me and learning from me. I am their role model.

The very thought that my kids may be feeding off of my actions and inculcating them makes me shudder. This is like I am under constant observation; a whole new kind of surveillance. A surveillance where my kids are silently watching me, making sense of my actions and absorbing it to tune their life. It brings in a whole new sense of responsibility in me. I need to ensure I am always putting the best of me in front of my kids.

As I think about this more, I feel maybe this is not bad after all. They may be helping me in way. If I go through this surveillance putting out the best of me now, I don’t have to do a surveillance on my kids when they come of age. I can be assured that what my kids will do is what I would have done in the same situation.

~Narendra V Joshi

A constricted mind

My son came back home from his preschool the other day and asked me “Papa, what do you want to be when you grow up?” I was almost about to say something but stopped. I sat back and repeated his question to myself – What do I want to be when I grow up? This was the first time in over 20 years someone had asked me this question. I did not want to just say anything. I really wanted to think and answer his question.

So what do I want to be when I grow up? I remember when I was a kid I wanted to join the navy. I have always liked sitting at the beach and listen to the sound of the waves. As a kid the very thought that if I was in Navy, I can be on a ship sailing on the seas excited me. But can I join the navy when I grow up, I questioned myself. Maybe the navy will have age, height, weight etc restrictions. Maybe Navy may not be a choice for me anymore. Can I become a musician? I like music. I have interest in learning to play musical instruments. But playing musical instruments requires lot of practice. I will be a failure if I choose the path of a musician. Maybe I can be a doctor. I can travel to remote areas and help people. I can be of some use to the people around me. But doctors have to study a lot. I have to get back to school and learn for the next several years before I can become a doctor. This might not be something for me.

I was thinking about what I can become when I grow up for several moments. I thought of every dream I had as I grew and scratched everything off for different reasons. Doctor, chartered accountant, musician, pilot, I had reasons why I cannot grow up to be anyone from any of those dreams.

My son shook me slightly and asked again – “Papa, what do you want to be when you grow up?”

There has to be something I can be when I grow up. I gave a deep thought and finally said “Teacher, I want to be a teacher when I grow up”, which brought a big smile on my sons face. I was happy there was something I can be when I grow up.

My son turned to leave and I asked him what he wanted to be when he grows up. He answered my question almost immediately. He said he wanted to be a doctor when he is as big as his sister, build roller coasters when he is as big as his cousin brother, a firefighter when he is as big as his mother, work on computer when he is as big as me, a dentist when is as big as his grandmother and a superhero with a large cape when is as big as his grandfather.

His answer dumbfounded me. What did just happen? My preschool son has so much clarity and ideas on what he wants to be when he grows up. While all my education and my degrees had only helped me to come up with reasons why I cannot become something when I grow up. Is this what education is supposed to do? The human mind is boundless and of immense possibilities. Education is supposed to be the tool which gives sense and broadens those possibilities. Unfortunately I was using my education to only bind my mind and constrict its possibilities.

I sat back to think. I decided I have to reconsider what I wanted to be when I grow up. But before that, maybe first I should empty my mind and get it back to its original state of immense possibilities. Then I should think what I want to be when I grow up. 

~Narendra V Joshi

Searching for peace at the top of the pyramid

We had been to a zoo the other day. We had reached there early as the zoo is big and takes a full day for family with kids to go around completely. The place was crowed but the kids were excited looking at the animals as we went around the zoo. It was close to the feeding time for the apes by the time we reached the part which has enclosures for chimps, gorillas, monkeys etc. There are benches to sit and watch as the animals are fed by the zoo keepers. I sat down to watch on one of the bench. It was like a few minutes when the gentleman next to me started a conversation. We spoke about how the animals behave when they see the food, how they eat, how the keepers handle them. One part of our conversation went like this -

Gentleman – It seems as if these animals know the time when to expect the food. Look at how they react when they see the keepers. You see those chimps there? Looks like they are now full.

Me – Some of them already seem to be sleeping.

Gentleman – yeah. It’s nice to see all these animals at the zoo; especially once they are fed. Once they are full they relax and laze. It feels so calm and peaceful to see them.

Me – True. It feels so peaceful here.

We spoke for some time but this part of the conversation did not leave me. I kept thinking about it even long after we had left that area. Something was bothering me. The question then occurred to me - “What is wrong with me?”.

We humans are supposed to be the most intelligent species on earth and represent the pinnacle of evolution. But when it comes to be being peaceful, none of this intelligence helps and we have to look at a bunch of monkeys to relax and be at peace? Maybe these monkeys know something that we intelligent humans don’t. Agreed, these animals are in cages and unfortunately have to spend a restricted life. But they get food on time without any effort and they seem to be at peace with this arrangement. And more so what is it that we humans are achieving been outside the cage? We worry about something or the other all the time - taxes, mortgages, children’s education, traffic, you name it. We also worry about things that have not even happened – stock market predictions, retirement money, health insurance for illness we don’t have.

The fundamental truth of our worries is that none of our worries are about alien invasion from outer space or a comet on a collision path with earth or such things as they show in movies. All of our worries have everything to do with the thoughts and actions of other humans. So all through our lives we worry about things that are based on actions and reactions of fellow humans.

Looks like somewhere during our evolution from apes, we exchanged peace for intelligence. Then we used our intelligence to cage monkeys and donkeys and feed them so that they don’t have to worry about food. Now we are using the same intelligence to achieve calm and peace by looking at those monkeys and donkeys as they laze around on full stomach.

I am still wondering; who is more intelligent - The ones inside the cage or the ones outside? 

~Narendra V Joshi