The first child, the older child, the boisterous child… all need to be treated as individuals. So it is ok to love your daughter differently than your son.

Facts-
· “Among all internet-based gamers, women are the majority because they prefer less frenetic mobile gaming activities, like online trivia and card games. It’s still the men who want to blast aliens, blow up things and take part in role-playing games, which are absent from the mobile gaming space.”
· “65% of mobile game revenue is driven by female wireless subscribers. They are the biggest driver of revenue for the Puzzle/Strategy category; comprising 72% of the total share of revenue.”

This is one of the many millions of differences between men and women.

Then why should we treat our children any different?
We often claim we treat our children the same. We say we treat our sons and daughters the same. We have been taught not to compare our children, that each child is unique and will live their lives in their own unique way.
It may be politically correct to say we love them equally, and not to compare our children. But do we really?

Comparing the children is OK
How often and how early we notice the differences in our children. And hard though it may be not to, comparisons are made. While one may talk early, another may be walking at an earlier age. While one sibling may show an artistic bend, another may be more mechanically oriented. Comparisons can be based on something even more basic- one is a boy, the other a girl. One is an older child, the other “still a baby”. One may be boisterous, the other more thoughtful.
Accept that this has to happen.

No two children are the same
While a girl may coo over the pretty dress of a doll, a boy of the same age may try to understand how it is fastened. Children are different- and gender plays a big role.
You might fret that your two year old son is not speaking as much and as clearly as your daughter did at the age of two. But stop to think: what is he good at? Chances are, he may be better coordinated than your daughter was at the same age. Or far more diligent in breaking toys than she. Who knows, you might have the next Newton in your hands.

Children are temperamentally different
Many parents will notice very early on that their children behave very differently in the same situation, and that what “works” with one child doesn’t with another. This difference in behavior and personality is called “temperament.” While one may respond to discipline with acceptance, the other may want to test your limits. Punishing the first for a mistake made may be as counter productive as trying to reason with the other.

Parents’ temperament play a role too
If the parent is an excitable, physical person, chances are he/ she might get easily frustrated with a less expressive child.
Understanding your child’s temperament as well as gender stereotypes is an important step in dealing with him/her. And an easy way to avoid negative labels (like ‘girly’ or ‘cry-baby’ to describe a sensitive boy).

No two children are loved the same
Parents often try hard to “treat both children equally”. While it may be nice, it may sometimes be hard. It may also sometimes be unfair.

An older child may be more ready to enjoy birthday parties. Does this mean you have to celebrate both children’s birthdays equally? A toddler may have more fun if it is only dearly beloved grandparents attending his/ her birthday than a lot of noisy children taking over his house.
You may have a cautious child, who takes time to open up to strangers and strange situations. Wouldn’t you treat this child with more patience than a friendlier sibling?

It is alright to treat your children differently. They react to you differently, don’t they? Rather than accepting them as they are, we often try to slot them by who we are. As parents, we have to work hard to love them love them ‘differently’ by accepting them as they are.

Dads have a far greater role today in bringing up children. And moms can help dad be a better dad.

 Dads will be dads. No matter how involved with the children they are, they can never be as good as mom. Sometimes, mothers make it easy by giving dads an escape route from active involvement in the chores of bringing up baby. “Learned helplessness” allows dads to get out of unpleasant tasks, especially with mom constantly stepping in. Mothers and fathers alike have to learn to become parents—it’s just that mothers get much more practice. Few dads measure up to mom As you watch the father take “care” of the baby, how often are you tempted to step in and take over? Saying it is not done like that. Or that is not the way Baby likes it done.  Whether it is burping an infant or tying up the Princesses’ hair just so, think about how you become THE expert. Did you too not struggle and make mistakes? Yes, you can soothe a cranky baby much faster than he can. But the moment you take over dads’ bumbling attempts at the job you now do so well, the moment he hands you your fussy baby instead of soothing her, you deprive yourself. AND you deprive the baby of having another competent adult to fall back on.  You deprive Dad of a chance to learn. 

The trick is not expecting them to be you

The princess WILL get ice cream instead of her glass of milk under the pretext it is the same thing! She will also tie her hair up anyhow to go out for their jaunts- and she will still expect you to match bows and bands and trinkets when you are on the job.

 Let Dad do things his way, he is not there to replace you. Keeping this in mind may help you the next time you want to offer him a solution- your solution.  

Dads are not male mothers

The mother is the fathers’ source of information, his guide. Both are parents, both share the responsibility, but both have different roles to play. Accepting this is the first step to complement each other, rather than trying to make him do things “your way”. The next step is to communicate and understand each others’ perspective of the task of parenting.  

Fatherhood is not a part time job

Fathers do not baby sit to leave you free for other chores. Adjusting your thoughts to treat his baby sitting as the time dad spends to bond with the child makes father a part of child rearing. Including him in the process involves him more, even if they do spend the time giggling over the cartoon channels. You can also suggest ways and things they can do together daily/ regularly- a stroll after dinner, or the evening bath and bed time routine.  

How not to make the perfect dad

Father may have fun dressing up his princess. They might not pick the perfect outfit (as defined by mom), but if it does the job, leave it. It is nicer to keep the mutual admiration society going than the perfectly coordinated daughter. 

And nagging him about not doing the job isn’t going to work either- the biggest hindrance to being a good father is a constantly critical partner. 

 Fathers reading this, please also note

Merely being present in your family doesn’t make you a good dad either. Passively being dad means the mother will probably get too involved in being mom, shouldering a larger part of the burden. The result- an alienated father. If the father doesn’t get actively involved from babyhood, they deprive themselves of genuine opportunities to grow with the baby.

Yes, the mother is better at playing with baby, or soothing them when they cry. But that is because she has had more practice. Don’t deny yourself the opportunity to be comfortable with your child due to a lack of practice.  Being a father is not only about changing diapers and soothing a cranky child. It is about working together to be a family.

I looked it up in the medical dictionary. Its’called Agoraphobia. Its’ a fear of crowds, of feeling safe only at home. It described my nervousness these days when I take the children out. I cannot deny them their little excursions, but I find I automatically avoid events that are slated to be crowd pullers. And I find increasingly, other mothers unwilling to make plans for anything that involves going too far and too long from home.

The kids had a blast last Sunday. We had taken them to the new mall, with a shiny new play area. While climbing, sliding and jumping, they forgot it took us 45 minutes to get out of the parking area- their parents couldn’t. We were tired after going through the security checks, the car was checked inside, under and the boot.  As we watched their mad antics in the jungle gym, we could not help worrying about the amount of glass surrounding us. For the kids, their treats started in the queue waiting to go inside. But for us, it was yet another reminder that our city and our world is under threat.

We took them on a ganapati darshan. All dressed up and excited about the festivities. They did not realise it, but their parents instinctively avoided the better reported and more popular places. We found ourselves driving away from the exciting lights in the heart of marathi Mumbai where we live. We did our darshan in quieter suburbs where the fairy lights were as bright but the crowds thinner. We deprived the children of the mela outside a pandal, but I guess we can make it up to them another year.

My son’s play school had a trip planned to Siddivinayaka temple this chaturti. I, who have always encouraged him to be independent, worried from the moment the circular came in till his special waking-up smile broke my heart that morning they were to go. I could NOT let him go. Yes, in retrospect the chaturti was relatively terrorist free, but I hope the teachers and He understand my anxiety.

Friends went for a movie leaving their kids behind. During the interval, there was a commotion and what turned out to be a bomb hoax. Their first thought was for their children left at home, and they have not been out without them since. They have curtailed their activities and social life, and I realize my nervousness is not mine alone.

I now leave early to drop the kids to school on time. I buffer twice the normal time as I have to factor in the nakabandis and police checks we have to go through. It used to be fun to drive to another part of the city on a weekend and meet up with friends. The kids used to enjoy having a sandwich picnic in the car so I don’t have to start the feeding ritual the moment we arrive. But now it takes twice as long to reach anywhere. There are checks on the road, there are traffic jams because of the checks and there is a husband tired of moving around in this city.

I guess, like all others in our city, I am learning to adapt. After being through an embarrassing security check where a soiled diaper bag, two sets of childrens’ underwear and dozens of empty sweet wrappers were displayed in public. I now prefer not carrying what I used to consider essentials in my purse. I prefer the security of the checks especially when the children are with me.

Yet, I am adapting. Adapting to living in a world that seems to be watching and waiting. Accepting being on high alert all the time. Accepting the slow traffic, accepting the reassurance of seeing khaki the predominant colour at the entrance to any public place. Accepting that chats over coffee with other mothers are now short and rushed- it comforts me to know other mothers too prefer being close to the home as far as possible. Reassured that headlines and news reports are not anything more terrifying than planes being turned around because of the exuberance of few innocent passengers. Comforted by the police waiting, watching, checking. Accepting, the alternate is too dreadful to contemplate.

And he left holes all over.

A hole the size of a car- no longer parked in the spot used for over 40 years. A hole on the dressing table- where I, as well as my own little girl, had sat on his lap and watched him shave, and played with the hair brushes collected by the bald man. A hole on the bedroom floor, which always had a patch covered with his powder for as long as I can remember. And a hole in the best spot in front of the TV whenever there was a cricket match, the spot and the remote wrestled from mum and her daily soaps.

A hole the size of a leather swivel computer chair- from which he would watch the proceedings of his three grandchildren, all under the age of three.  A hole the size of a desk- where all his papers were still neatly stacked when we came back from the hospital with his body. A hole in my guest room cupboard, no longer holding the bag of clothes that came with him every time, whether for the day or just for lunch.

And a man size hole blasted next to my mother, not ever to be photographed with him hugging her.

It is now one year.

Never mind if now, his desk contain my mother’s clutter of papers. As does the dressing table where his shaving kit and brushes used to be. Never mind if I sometimes get my fathers smell on my baby, occasionally dusted with his grandfather’s powder. Never mind if the baby he last saw at 6 months now walks, runs and shows signs of leaning not towards cricket but football.

Never mind if I can now drive, despite Baba’s attempts over the years to teach me. And the shirts I used to buy him are now in my own cupboard. The grandparents cupboard now occasionally has the bag he used to bring, which mum packs her things in when she comes to visit. Never mind that my daughter shows a marked tendency to like the kind of fish he used to love. Never mind if it is my children who now enjoy swiveling around on the computer chair.

Never mind if my mother finally visited the mountains she lived in as a child, as she doesn’t have Baba and his heart problem by her side. Never mind if all pictures show her smiling with their grandchildren.

 Some holes don’t get quite filled, in quite the same way.

Dear Husband, 

Let me bop you on the head and remind you I exist. 

Yes, it was a while ago that I used to get five calls at the office. And the times when we used to gossip about our day at work, our family, and dreamt dreams together. We talked about where we can go on sundays, what are the new restaurants and who can we call home for dinner.  Sure, there was excitement in setting up home together. Fun in choosing drapes, in setting up the kitchen, in finding the money and the right designs for the new furniture. We could go any place, including where children below 18 years are not allowed.   

Agreed, it has been five years, twenty kgs and two babies ago.  

But, let me ask you to call home once in a while to talk to me. Instead of calling a friend to discuss something that has caught your attention. Instead of calling home to find out what your daughter has to say about her school picnic. And whether your son has had his hair cut. Or to merely let me know whether you will be home for lunch, or not home for dinner. 

Let me remind you there are still dreams to be dreamt, holiday destinations unexplored, and new restaurants to check out. And there are conversations to be made beyond commercial break time and beyond whether I should heat up dinner. 

Yes, now it is the kids that mob you as you walk in through the door. But let me remind you that they are not yet so big that you cant greet me over their heads. Let me remind you that soon the kids WILL be too big and then there will be only me. 

No, I am not asking you to get out the candles and the roses out to romance me. Your children will choose that moment to ask you to feed them/ change them/ swing them up in the air/ sit on your lap/ switch on the cartoon channel.  

I know you care; you show it to me in many little ways and a few big ways too. But do, once a day, TELL me that I am more than ayah, housekeeper, teacher, doctor, laundrywalla, dinner-heater and mother.  

With love,

Your flat mate

A.K.A Your Wife 

PS- see, I haven’t even mentioned TV.

He thought he wanted a son. To watch cricket on TV with, to teach him how to swim, to discuss the innards of a car, to share the rock albums of his youth … all the father- son rites became irrelevant the first time he held his baby daughter. And the minutes old baby looked up at him, already a gleam in her eyes that said she knew his heart was hers.

The little princess is now two years old. She demands to wear her Baba’s favourite clothes after the days play is done- so that, “Baba will say oh my feetopie” when he returns from office. She has figured that with one little whisper, “Baba, kaju”, her Baba will drop his remote, stop watching TV and get up to oblige (a feat I have not managed in all the time we have been married). With me she knows her treats are limited, her TV restricted to certain programs at certain times of the day, and she better have her milk or else.… She also knows that when it is her fathers turn to take care of her, she will be taken in royal style to the club swimming pool and not merely to the local park And is sure to get ice cream instead of a glass of milk. I am the wicked witch in her life! 

To him, she is the lode star, the one he comes home to after the stress of work, the one he spends his Sundays with, the one he misses and calls home to find out what she has been up to. I have been relegated to being the ogre in their lives who announces, “bed time”.  

I have watched him holding her close, absorbing her baby smells. Treasuring the way her unformed face looks, imagining what she will look like all grown up. Enthralled by the look of peace on a very mobile face as she sleeps. Playing “here comes the bride” in his head when she bursts from her room demanding his attention to her new pink frock. All the sights, sounds and smells to be treasured to help him through the days when she is no longer little. For the day when his little baby will announce, “ Baba, there is someone I want you to meet” and in will walk the scruffiest, hairiest boyfriend a girl could possibly have!  For the time, some time soon, when she needs us less and requires more than food, shelter and cuddles.

 His first thought, while in a plane that had hit a turbulence, was his daughter. A fear of leaving her fatherless, of not protecting her and watching her grow.  I guess my own father, in his generation and time, felt the same. I did not really think, till I saw my husband with my own little girl, about how much the man who had made me his princess felt.

It is their turn to discover the joys of standing in the showers, it doesn’t matter whether they are on the way to school or splashing in the playground. To discover the pleasure of wool gathering by the open window before mom bangs it shuts against another downpour. My role has been relegated to obsessing about every puddle they let into the house. Of correlating the number of changes of clothes with the number of showers in a day. Of stringing lines and drying clothes in every room, and putting up with the damp wet-clothes smells all day.

We bought them the bright umbrellas that are making splashes of colour in otherwise gloomy days- in bus stands, outside the shops and at every traffic signal. And neon raincoats. My daughter protested on having to carry and wear them. She says the drizzle still gets into collars, into her hair, so why not just leave them at home. My son manages to get completely wet despite all the gear I make him wear; he seems to be on auto pilot into every puddle. I guess it’s their turn to get wet, mine to pointlessly nag about carrying extra clothes and socks to school.

They are learning to enjoy the gloom, the cold and the damp. And I again get this feeling of déjà vu as I try to wake the warm, cuddly bundles in time for school. I can hear my mother hollering the same lines that I find myself using. They are getting used to not seeing the sun for days. Which means the playground is too damp to meet little buddies. I have learnt to stock up for my turn to have the neighbourhood kids splashing in for an impromptu tea party.

They are learning the delight of hopping into every puddle in sight. Of making mudpies. Of walking on slushy grass. Of dangling an earthworm at the end of a stick. Of hot roasted “bhuttas”. Of coming home with goosebumps and wet, clinging clothes to a hot shower. I have resigned myself to spending my evenings taking off the mud caked in shoes, pant cuffs, cycle tyres… to be ready for another layer the next day. It is their turn to play “who can jump highest in the slush”. And my turn to worry about conjunctivitis, jaundice, coughs and colds.

I watch my kids taste the rain. I think we’ll bunk school tomorrow and go home, to my mum’s house. And sail paper boats in the storm drains where my brother and I had played. Who knows, maybe grand mom will join us, like she used to…