Hop over!

My latest post at Women's Web is up.

An excerpt:

I am 40. It took me this many years to learn to stand up for myself.  And even now, I am not fully there yet. I still, sometimes, need to remind myself to think of “me” instead of the other person. My first reaction is still to blame myself if I get in a conflict with someone. I am still too timid to speak up about what I want or things that bother me. And when I catch myself doing that, I wonder why it is so? Why is it easy for men to say “Well, he/she is an a-hole” when they get in a conflict while women say “I must have done or said something to elicit that response from him/her”?

What is it that makes us this way? Our upbringing? Maybe. Our inherent nature? I doubt that. Social conditioning? YES! I cannot remember the number of times I have been told by one particular female relative that, being a woman, it is my supreme duty to a) tolerate everything, b) put others first, c) keep my mouth shut. You subject a woman to years of that sermon, along with taking her independence away by forbidding her from working, making her financially dependent and telling her all the time that she is good only because you are good to her (which implies no matter what she does, her efforts can never be exceptional or applaud-worthy) and what do you get? A broken woman who think she is good for nothing. A woman who takes years to realize that she got the jobs that she got (when she finally went out to work) because she was wanted for her skills and not because the employers were out to do charity.

New post on Women's Web

Note: All is well with the link. It was my office computer's browser that was acting up. *sheepish grin*

I grew up hearing the phrase "aajkal ke bachchey..." (kids these days...). Our parents said it whenever we did something that they were not allowed to do when they were our age. They couldn't talk back to their elders - they got whacked if they did. They didn't talk so much. They listened to their parents. And so on...

I hear the same refrain now, about the new generation - our kids. The "new generation" is fast, they are arrogant, more mature/obnoxious etc. Each generation of parents thinks their kids' generation is getting off easier in discipline matters than they ever did. And I cringe at the phrase "kids today..." I mean - really? Is it only the kids of today's generation? How did they learn all the things, behaviors and attitudes that we moan about, if not from us directly or indirectly? We either teach them these behaviors orpermit them to behave this way. I once wrote "Kids might not always behave the way their parents want them to, but they will ALWAYS behave the way they are allowed to." I still maintain that this is absolutely true.

Read the complete post here

I am not that mother!

Just posted an article on Women's Web. Do check it out. Excerpt below.

I have been watching the furore that Amy Chua's article created in the last month or so. And been trying to decide where I stand on the issue. I see Amy's point in pushing the children for their own good but her own admission of how (much) she pushed her kids left me bewildered. But immediately after reading her article, I read a couple more articles on the topic and one of them mentioned that this article of Amy's is just an excerpt from her book, "The battle hymn of a tiger mother" and that WSJ presented it in the entirely wrong light. I understand it was a tactic on WSJ's behalf, to publicize the book.

What amazed me is our reaction to this article. Many people criticized Amy (understandable), wrote posts about their own parenting style (again, understandable), compared her parenting to their own, establishing the superiority of their own methods (I have to accept - I had the urge too). I am amazed at the insecurity this article has brought out in all of us. Am I as bad a parent as Amy Chua? Are my kids as suppressed as hers? I could almost hear everyone asking themselves these questions. I could remember at least one "Amy-ish" incident which still makes me cringe whenever I think about what kind of a parent I used to be.


 Read more here.

Check it out!

I have started contributing posts to Women's Web as a guest blogger. I won't be copying those posts here, just their links. Do check out my first post there.

I have also started contributing at Stage of Life as a featured blogger. So far I have only reposted one of my old posts there but I am working on a new one too. Check the site out - it has some great resources!