Raising good little husbands and fathers

I have sons. I've always wanted daughters. I ached for one when my first son was born and so had a second, also a boy.

Now, I wouldn't exchange that for anything in the world. My boys are just super.

However, I felt pangs of sadness when I knew we were not going to have more kids.

There would be no daughters.

Sad, yes, because I would miss all the fun of having a little baby girl but mostly sad because my husband and I, with our values and outlook would've made such good parents to a girl. Girls need parents who empower them. Even today. Despite all the progress, women still have it tough and need to be told how strong and capable they are. Amidst all the pink and frills and make up and fluff, girls need to perceive just how much they can and should do. We would've done that for a daughter.

As my parents did for me. In my home, I was always the older one, my brother, the younger one. It empowered me. Completely. I tell my father, he is the one who gave me the courage to stand out, to never toe the line, to never compromise, to be myself, to go forth and conquer.

I also think this way because my husband is the way he is. The most kind, liberated man I know in every sense of the word. He's the kind of dad a girl would have loved to have.

Then I think, we need more men like that.

Men who truly don't think women should or shouldn't do something other than out of choice. Men who respect the person they work with, man or woman. Men who can be surrounded by powerful, attractive women and not feel threatened or compelled to show off their male-ness in any way. Men whom women trust as colleagues and friends, without fear of strings attached.

So that is what I must do for my sons. Raise them to be men like that. Modern in every sense of the word. Equal partners to the persons they decide to link their lot with. Supportive, encouraging, understanding, helpful.

When I tell my ten year old to put the toilet seat down, to learn to cook meals, to help around the house not for pocket money but because he is a part of the household, it is to start learning to be a good person, a supportive partner in the future. To a man or woman, I suppose. For in any marriage/partnership, someone ends up doing more of one thing than the other. The balance may tilt and as long as the one is willing to bear the burden with the other being understanding about it, the partnership works. Right now, I am the primary care giver for our family, my husband the winner of bread. But he has told me time and time again that he will willingly give it all up. If I want to take his place, he will happily take over my role.

I hope I can teach my sons to develop a willingness to change or alter roles as the need requires and to not feel threatened if their wives are in more powerful or bigger money making situations than they. To know that such a case is not cause for insecurity as much as it is cause to celebrate and be proud. Then I'll have raised good husbands and future good fathers.

My boys have never been told not to cry like a girl, throw like a girl or anything that makes them slot men and women into places that are unfair at best, cruel at worst. They wear as much pink and purple as they'll (in spite of biological and social wiring) allow me to put on them.

They will and must learn to appreciate that a woman staying home to take care of her children is doing so by making certain sacrifices. It's not just mums who do this. It's the person in the marriage who has chosen to do it. It's not just a mum's job to do this and a dad's to do that. Even though that is what they mostly see around them.

I found myself stumped when my friend with two daughters (she has a PhD and has chosen to stay home for the time being) said that she wonders sometimes how to encourage her kids to do all they can, to work hard and get an education, a career path, if at the end they must put it aside to care for their children. It is indeed a difficult question. A question of priorities. And there's no easy answer.

But here is where the man in the picture can make such a difference. Sons. Future husbands and fathers.

Yes, my sons see the stereotype. It is hard to tell them that it's more complex than what they see. They see me cooking the meals, cleaning up, doing the laundry. Right now this is how the balance tilts in our household. But they also see that I have published a book, that I am looking to get back into the business world. They see how my husband treats me. Like his best friend, his equal partner in every sense.

It is important to me for my sons to see me do more than be their mother. I believe it is important for a child to see their mother in a role beyond mothering. No matter how small, in a different role. It gives them the idea that their mother is more than mother and wife. She has different aspects to her personality and life. It gives them pride in her for a different aspect of her life than being mother. This I have seen happen.

Not that it is the answer but it goes a long way, besides always maintaining gender equality in speech, behavior and action in our boys' presence.

My mother says if a child is a good child, it means their grandparents were/are good.

She is so right. For this is a cycle, isn't it?

Good, considerate liberated fathers will probably beget sons who will then be good, considerate, liberated husbands and fathers.

Race representative

I am sick of it. Tired of being a representative for India. I am tired of answering questions about my country of origin, about the traditional clothes I wear, about Hinduism, our food habits, history etc etc.

I am still never able to kick off the feeling that I always need to be on my best behavior. I represent India, and I am answerable for all its issues from the possible realities of Slumdog Millionaire to food and everything in between.

I am tired of being around people who assume just because we speak a different language, it must be Spanish.

All this from people who are the nicest as can be but so not exposed to anything other than the four walls of the Midwest. I am not saying buy an airline ticket to Seoul or Tokyo. But it's time to pick up some books and find out what a sari looks like or a Kimono or a Cossack.

The world has shrunk, we practically live on top of each other and yet so many people I know are completely ignorant. Never mind that it is such an irrtant that even after two wars and all the exposure from novels and news, people pronounce Iraq as Eye-rak or Afghanistan as Aafganistaan. Seriously? Time to hit the books, friends. Time to twist that tongue already.

The days of living in your own little world blissfully ignorant are long past. Might do you some good to learn Mandarin and pick up some tips about not cutting a sorry figure in a meeting in Mumbai.

Now let's flip the coin to the other side.

My own stereotypical thinking and imagery.

American women are super confident. Having observed women from all over the world, American women walk different, talk different--just with a slight chip, it would seem, to the lay observer. They appear so tough and seldom let chinks in their armor show. And so I make certain unfair assumptions based on that--presume lack of sensitivity or understanding and such. I admire them for their sheer show of strength, be it real or not. But for someone who walks around with her heart on her sleeve and being from a culture where such strength isn't necessarily needed to be shown only to be seen in action, its hard for me to see beyond the mask. Even friends, the game face is seldom off so its hard to break down that barrier, that facade of what might well be bravado. It's unfair of me I know and yet...

And with minor stereotypes, if I speak to someone with a European accent, I realized that even the most innocuous statement has me romanticizing them somehow. Someone I know from Europe mentioned to me in passing how he take coffee with his wife every morning at 6:30. Instantly, in my mind flashes this image of him and his wife sitting on a balcony facing a cobbled street and age old buildings. The man lives in suburban Illinois and I know this yet my mind went to what my association with his accent and manner were.

Perhaps people think I sit around the house wearing tons of jewelry and cooking tandoori chicken, listeaning to sitar music. And I suppose I mustn't blame them, I guess.

What's commonplace to one is exotic to another.

I cannot see an Asian woman without wondering what she might be cooking for dinner since Japanese and Chinese foods I absolutley love. When I see them at grocery stores buying this and that I have to contain myself from stopping them and asking for recipes for whatever goodies they have planned. Does it occur to me that they're just like the rest of us trying to get a meal on the table, not a gourmet spread? Yes and no.

And yet despite understanding this, I am starting, perhaps in my old age, to feel the need to be around people who just get it. To whom I don't need to explain what a bindi means or who Ganesh is.

Or that we don't speak Spanish at home.

Truth is I am a foreigner in America. In some senses. In many I am as American as they come having absorbed core values that I believe makes my adopted country so great. And yet I need to feel like I belong in a place where there are other transplants like me. Others who would like to be wished Happy Chinese New year at the appropriate time or Happy Diwali. And in the middle of it all, Merry Christmas too...

What is wrong with us?

I just saw the movie 'The Imitation Game' and was deeply affected by it as I usually am when a genius dies unnecessarily at a young age due to the utter foolishness of man.

Alan Turing died at 41. Committed suicide. Because he had to take these idiotic drugs to "cure" his homosexuality. My stomach turns.

41. I am 42. And I haven't even gotten started on my road yet.

This man who would have turned computing on its head, this man whose ideas are still revered today died at 41 because we are stupid and frightened of what we don't understand.

Even today I have friends ask me if I would be upset if my son/s were gay. Really? is it worth answering that question? It boggles the mind to think how far behind we still remain in the quest to being evolved individuals.

Color, race sexuality, religion still separates us because of suspicion and fear. Shooting people out of fear, war because of hatred and suspicion, persecution because some religious book or other said it was okay to do so.

The religion bit amuses me no end. It's man made, people! Religion wasn't made by God. God didn't write any of that stuff. We invented it. Whatever served the powers that be at that time designed it the way they saw fit. And if we take what they deigned to tell us is the way to live, then God help us all...

Anyway, I digress. The death of a great mind at a young age is what we are talking about. The Alan Turing thing reminded me of one of my favorite writers--Oscar Wilde--also persecuted in his case, imprisoned for indecency (read homosexual behavior). He died in prison. Tragic.

Oh and Alan Turing was posthumously pardoned...wait for it...in 2013. How grand. Kinda close to the whole church accepting Copernicus' theory hundreds of years after it was proposed. Idiocy, all of it.

The world has changed some since those dark days (anyone who laments for the good old days is gaga in my book)

It has changed some, but not a whole lot.

I hope a day comes when people simply have to shake their heads and laugh in disbelief at the ways we have treated one another over the centuries and shudder gladly that such times are long past and will never come again.

I truly hope.