Mar 24, 2025 12:16 IST
First published on: Mar 24, 2025 at 12:16 IST
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In a breach with convention, I will begin with the conclusion, the TLDR for the young and rushed and the older and jaded — I have no nuggets of wisdom to offer on raising a son, or raising anything for that matter, even a plant. In my house, they raise themselves. I provide water, occasional patches of sunlight and soothing words (actually, a lot of words. In my experience, trees and plants are the best listeners; my other favourite conversation partners are less steady, the bulbuls, mynahs, orioles and other assorted birds fly away mid-conversation). I confess my ignorance about raising, moulding, creating — I mean, I struggle with making a short story behave; a whole human being is a different story.
As a young woman of 20-something, raised in a household of all sorts of intellectual freedom — from questioning god to questioning the world — and very little real freedom, with lots of book-learning and very little practical knowledge, when I found myself with a little human of the male persuasion, I girded my waist and approached motherhood with the same determination and eager preparation as I did every other learning. I read copiously and doubted myself all the time. And worried. About everything — from whether I have sufficient breast-milk to whether I am doing enough for his development and stimulation. Notice the emphasis on action? Yes, I was focused on doing everything and doing it not just right but perfect, all the time doubting what was right, let alone perfect. I was being a mother with my whole being while holding down a full-time investment banking job and managing my household and family.
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It wasn’t a big deal. Many women do it, few are as fortunate as me to have so much support both in and outside of home. However, while I was focused on doing, my son was spontaneously growing, in his own way, along his own paths. I painstakingly prepared nutritious, balanced meals and he preferred banana slices with boiled rice. I bought him toys that aided age-appropriate sensory stimulation and learning (or so the manufacturers professed) and he rolled in the grass and dug mud whenever he got a chance. I read to him, took him to the supermarket to learn his fruits and vegetables, brought him into work to socialise him with safe adults. I taught and exposed and offered, set routines and made rules. I walked with him in the ornamental fountain in the public garden behind my workplace for the sheer joy of it but worried about him catching a cold.
In the meantime, he continued growing. He acquired skills and behaviours I had no hand in teaching him. He learnt to unlatch the child door installed at the kitchen entrance, climbed to the highest rung of the jungle gym, refused to sing along at the playgroup and fussed over food. He changed from day to day — one day he’d recite poems to strangers and the next hide behind me. Everything that moved — automobiles, buses, cable cars — held irresistible attraction for him but he shunned merry-go-rounds. He liked watching snails and showed no interest in the birds I would point out.
He refused to eat any lunch, packed or school-served. He had little interest in art and craft, and rejected all sports from cricket to roller-skating and then chose football, a contact sport no one in the family had any connection to or understanding of, one that terrified me such that I couldn’t bear to watch him play and — at the same time — could not stay away. Anxious, with ears cocked for every sound coming from the field, alert to every change in the rhythm of chants and shouts, I waited outside for the game to finish, my heart giving way as he emerged dirt-streaked and dishevelled, and yet remaining outwardly stoic so as not to embarrass him. He played through a torn ligament and assorted injuries, focussed on collecting balls and scoring goals while he continued to forget his notebooks and textbooks in school, his shoes on the football field and jacket on the school bus. He became a skilled puzzle-solver, player of word-games and complex problem-games. He developed a love for languages and taught himself German, and later acquired native proficiency in it and Spanish.
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He negotiates in the best traditions of deal-making, he argues his position, he runs circles around everyone with his radical views on conventional matters. He can find his way around cities, systems and vagaries. He speaks intelligently and thoughtfully about football strategies and has the cleverest and wackiest sense of humour.
Books remain the one common object of interest between us. I am an inveterate buyer and reader of books. Initially, I bought books for him, then for him and me, now he buys books for us. Here too he surprises me. He scours estate sales in his neighbourhood, sifts through volumes in thrift shops and brings me old, venerable gems, beautifully bound, smelling of older, more gracious times — and of stories.
I wonder how all this came about, wherefrom emerged this well-balanced and articulate young man from the shy, careless boy who refused to have his hair cut. I certainly did not teach him any of this. In fact, he taught me — to appreciate creativity of all sorts — in literature, art, visual media; to set boundaries firmly, to disagree without being defensive, to not be cowed by aggression, nor fazed by authority, to be independent and loving, to care but not allow stifling. In that sense, he has raised me.
So, like I said, I have no wisdom to offer, just this conclusion — it is not the case of the potter with her lump of clay on the wheel but of a river and rock, each shaping the other, raising, abrasing, smoothening. Allowing it all to happen is parenting.
Upadhyay is a bi-lingual author with works published in Hindi and English