Of Ozzies & Babies

*WARNING: This is a LONG post! Don't complain in the comments, you've been warned!*

As predicted, Australia won the Cricket World Cup Final today. This makes me a little angry because I'm a natural egalitarian and think that everyone should get to sit at the head of the table once in a while. But who can blame them - they're a great team, and do deserve the first prize.

It was a dreary, rain-drenched day in Barbados and not at all good conditions for cricket. Makes you wonder why the ICC would select the West Indies to be the host countries during tornado and storm season anyway. Regardless, the match started late due to rain, and was shortened to 38 overs a side. Australia played very well and Sri Lanka did give it their all, but all hope was lost after the fall of lynch-pin Sanath Jayasuriya. This is quite sad because I thought SL was beyond the Indian Sachin's-Out-So-Lets-Give-Up syndrome, but maybe I'm not giving them enough credit. After all, they were playing on a soggy pitch with next to no light...

Cricket aside, it was an interesting day since we watched the game and spent the day at the house of some good friends (who have Dish network of course) along with other couples who drifted in and out all day with their legions of various sized babies in tow.

Despite not having any children of my own, I sure do end up spending time with a whole bunch of them. The problem with having "couple" friends is that 99% of them have kids, or are pregnant. As the only childless couple I know in Boston, we're always the odd ones out, crooning over other people's children with none to show for ourselves!

Don't get me wrong, I actually do enjoy talking about children, their habits, how to rear them, pregnancy stories - my mother and I never had the kind of relationship where such conversations took place (unless they were about how much misery she went through during labor), and our lives in Dubai were always somewhat isolated from the "chehel pehel" of life in India where communal living is normal and there are people to bond with from whom you learn these things. Plus I really love children - I always have been a natural and willing baby-sitter and I like being around them.

But then there comes a point when sticky cups and crumbs, bruises and bumps, and all the sheer noise begins to make your head feel like it's going to explode. It hurts to swallow or turn your neck. You want to be able to start and finish a train of thought without an interruption. You want it to be QUIET.

Mind you, as much as kids get the blame for being noisy, it's the parents who're even louder. Even when their kids are not around and are playing in the basement, parents tend to speak at insanely loud decibels due to the sheer habit of having to speak over the noise of their kids, and that's what makes my head spin even more. I'd rather yell at the kids to keep it down and have them be quiet, than blow out my brains talking like I'm at a rock concert.

Sarwar has immense patience and in general is an exceedingly polite human being, so he doesn't ever even think about commenting on or discussing other peoples' parenting styles/home decor sense/tact/sense of style with me or anyone else - i.e. he never talks about the good stuff :P

But when 7 children get together, decide to leave the sanctuary of their basement, and start screaming and running around the house in circles with no designated "it" and no specific quarry in mind, you really start to wonder if it's worth avoiding that 10 minute tantrum if you have to do it by allowing them to ingest all the sugar they want and then go nuts.

I was brought up on a lot of yelling, spanking and being told what to do. Yes, I have my neuroses but I can't say I'm scarred for life. But today's generation of enlightened, educated parents actually think of parenting as an art or science or skill - not like my parents for whom it was just something that you had to do now that you went ahead and had a baby in the first 11 months of being married.

Parents today are so wary of the adult's impact on children, and so keen on giving their children "normal" childhoods, that these perfectly good disciplinary tactics of yore are giving way to negotiation, rationalization and simply increasing your patience. Again, don't get me wrong - I'm no kid-beater.. but at some level there are things that a good spanking and yelling can achieve that techniques from parenting books can't.

A lot of my childhood memories are about my Dad, and a lot of them involve his strict emphasis on discipline. Sometimes we would be in our rooms and we'd hear him yelling for us in his stern voice. We'd come running out in a panic, thinking we were in trouble, when he'd point to the ground and ask, "Yeh kya hai?". We'd look at the object of his annoyance and see a speck of tissue paper. "Uthao aur phek ke aao", he would command and we'd have to follow.

Yes, I agree this is discipline bordering on mania. But we weren't necessarily scared of him, most of the time his silly rules made us roll our eyes. But we knew that he was right and that we were always expected to meet a certain standard of cleanliness, hygiene, discipline, grades, and social grace. And if they weren't met, there would be consequences.

This simple understanding is what, I believe, drove me and my siblings to do all our homework by ourselves, shower and change by ourselves, run around the block, clean our rooms, and sometimes feed ourselves by the age of 7 or 8. Yes, we had a live-in maid so we didn't have to do any of the hard labor, and there were some exceptions to these habits (see below), but we did have our chores and his high expectations endowed us with a sense of accountability and independence, which are qualities that have helped us succeed our whole lives. Fear of retribution isn't necessarily the best motivator for a child, but sometimes it can be more effective than love alone.

Of course, children are children, and every child is unique. Some kids need prodding, others don't. Some kids need love, some prefer being fed exactly what they want, some prefer to show passive resistance. Different kids, different approaches - enlightened parents are definitely doing the right thing by recognizing that. But at some level, too much understanding gets destructive and you just need a good spanking to be set on the right path.

After all, if I hadn't failed a math test in 10th grade, gotten yelled at by my Dad and been forced to practice tangents in front of him for a whole hour, I probably never would have been motivated enough to get an A in my O'Level Math exam.

If my parents hadn't expressed their shock and disgust after finding out that I had avoided showering for 16 days while they went to the UK to settle my oldest sister into university, I probably would have continued to hate taking showers (oh wait, I still do.. it's not that I'm averse to being clean, they just take so much TIME!).

I try not to judge other parents since it's easy to be on the outside looking in and who knows, when my time comes I might do every single thing wrong as a mother. And I hope I don't offend them when I sometimes speak sternly to their kids, or start cleaning their house without them asking.

But it's a natural maternal instinct that's leaping to get out, a mindset that's been honed and sharpened by decades of disciplinary action. I can only hope that I have the chance to use it constructively soon, and that I succeed with my tactics and don't have to end up eating all my words in this blog post :P