I have found so many answers to parenting and life in the Bhagavad Gita that I couldn't start this one without quoting something that deeply resonated with me.
mātā gurutarā bhūmeh pitā uccataraś ca khāt
manah śīghrataram vāyoś cintā bahutarī neņām
(Yudhishthira answered, 'The mother is heavier than the earth; the father is higher than the heaven; the mind is lighter than the wind and our thoughts are numbered more than grass.")
Growing up, I didn't have too many memories of my parents agreeing to what I wanted or vice versa. They were too busy providing for my sisters and me, and nurturing us. It didn't seem like parenting was a chore for them. It appeared more like a natural extension. I don't recall them talking to their friends about us applying to schools or what we ate, drank-were we fussy eaters? Nothing at all.
My earliest recollections involve my parents taking a stand for something they deeply believed in-education. They picked an English-medium school for my older sister, in contrast to the Gujarati-medium schools attended by my cousins. I am sure, like most parents between the 1970s and 1990s, my par- ents believed that education, regardless of a person's gender, would be the defining factor in changing the world. All our parents, rather than spending money on us for clothes, shoes, parties or presents, made sure we had access to the best food and the best education possible-they never cut corners when it came to these two things.
There were no dedicated story times or bedtime routines. There was no option or idea of sleep training or co-sleeping. You learn to sleep on your own when you have to live in a joint family, which was the norm back then with many people living in a tiny house. My mother, who was raising four children on her own, hardly made it to bed on time. And then she had to get up early and start the day all over again. She prioritized family, work and sleep.
Even as she was braiding the hair of her four girls, she super- vised our homework and checked in with us about our day. There was no moment our parents spent not playing catch-up. For a parent, life was about multitasking then and it is about mul- titasking even now.
All my life, I have watched my parents just 'do'. No one com- plained when they had more on their plate than their fair share. Until we have children, our parents always seem ex- treme in comparison. Today, as parents, we seek answers from them whenever we feel challenged in different situations every single day. We all seek a playbook to parenting of different peo- ple who, according to us, have done it right. I am sure you have come back from a conversation with a parent or read a book, saw a billboard with someone on it or scrolled through Instagram and thought 'I wish I knew what their parents did right.'
Now that I'm older, I can see that I had no idea how my for- mative years had influenced me the way they did. I can't pin- point one thing. Was it the everyday things? You will question on your journey as a parent, the mundane, the routine things, the simple things that may seem very insignificant to you then but they could be your child's fondest memories.
For me, I wonder what it was that contributed to who I am today. Was it the long walks I took at Marine Drive with my dad, holding his hand as I asked him all the questions I could think of and he'd patiently answer? Or was it the time he took us horseback riding at the park, where he jogged right behind me just in case I fell as the horse rider took me for a ride?
Was it the holidays and train rides we took, where we shared food with fellow passengers and learned to protect ourselves and our belongings? We grew up in a world that was real and not a bubble, like the one our kids are growing up in today-far from reality.
Or was it teaching us table tennis on the dining table at home by placing two glasses and a stick to create the net? Was it getting up and staying up with us, or driving us to and from the exam centres so we could study in the car? Or maybe it was my mom, who managed to become financially secure by the time she was forty, despite having only completed high school. Maybe getting up at ungodly hours to get everything done was keeping her from realizing her dreams. The problem could never be bigger than her. Her willpower was taller than any mountain I've ever seen. The seeds for my early rising habit (I was up by 5 a.m.) were planted by her when I was young. My father instilled in me the importance of a routine by working from 10.30 a.m. to 8 p.m., Monday through Saturday, and not getting home until after 9 p.m. This routine wasn't compro- mised if it was raining, we were unwell, there was a family function, or even during the Mumbai riots. These habits and restraints may have seemed mundane and boring at the time, but they were, without a doubt, instrumental in ensuring that my parents enjoyed a prosperous old age and that my mother would continue to do so, long after his passing.
Sure enough, I grew up in a home where my father treated my mother with the utmost respect and fully supported every professional and personal choice she made from her decision to enter the workforce at the age of forty to her wanting to teach Hindi since she wasn't well versed in English. Since we were a nuclear family, he would prepare meals on the days my mother was away or needed rest (when she had her period, for example) and would pack our school dabbas while she did our hair. My dad has always said that a woman's worth is not solely measured by her ability to work in the kitchen, even though my mom is an excellent cook. To ensure that she could spend time with us and pursue her ambitions of working and being financially independent, he hired a cook to prepare all of our meals.
Girls should get an education because a path to financial in-dependence is the greatest gift of all. The value of money and the importance of saving it were not mere lessons I picked up from books, but rather from watching my parents prioritize our education over material possessions and practise thrift in order to fund our annual summer vacation. Despite being able to live reasonably well, both of my parents never once made anything except books and education abundantly available. Everything was in limited supply so maybe we valued it a lot more. Dresses were stitched twice a year for Diwali and birthdays, and birthdays were celebrated at home with Camy Wafers, home-made pav bhaji and cake from Monginis. We would give out our favourite Bourbon biscuits or Jim Jam as return gifts and ah, the joy of eating that or taking it to school the next day was an achievement of a different level altogether.
I am baffled at how my parents could have four kids and still appreciate and support each of us despite our differences. How hard it must have been to avoid making comparisons between your four kids. And not compare us to the children from the extended family too? Yes, there was no social media pressure where you were competing and comparing with strangers, but there was social pressure where you were competing with your neighbour and cousins.
Looking back, I can't pinpoint a single event or realization that turned out to be formative, but there were certainly piv- otal times in my life that will forever live in my memory.
As soon as you make the decision to become a parent, you begin to wonder if you're capable of becoming one. Questions such as 'How should I go about becoming a parent?' and 'How can I do this right?' start to consume you. You eventually reach a point reach where you realize you love someone more than yourself. Worries like whether you're doing a good job, whether you're keeping up with the 'Sharmas', or how to do it all like the parents you look up to, start to weigh on you.
When my daughter was three, I decided to launch Kidsstoppress.com because I felt, all parents, including myself, needed a guide to parenting. Food, feeding schedules, bedtime rituals, playtime strategies and toys, all needed to be just right. But that was the simple part-the part about being a role model who walked the talk seemed to be the least explored.
After ten years of running Kidsstoppress, interviewing thousands of Indian and international celebrities, raising two daughters on the cusp of teenage, and dealing with a global pandemic, I found myself wondering-what do parents of outliers, people who have stood for something and left an impact on the world, do differently than I am/we are doing? What have these outliers, these children, gone through in life to reach where they are today?
Whether our upbringing was good, bad, ugly or beautiful, I am confident that it played a significant role in shaping who we are today. Since we take so much with us from our past, it was instinctive to check in with those who lived then to see if they had any inkling that their descendants would one day exhibit charac- teristics typically associated with the exceptional.
Our self-portrait, as we present it to the world, is a polished and curated ver- sion of who we want to be, but our parents are the only people who ever get to see the real us. They understand us more intimately than we know ourselves. They have known us even before we knew ourselves.
