I am stuck between so many worlds.
I am a Malayalee, yet I think that is only true in the ethnicity part of who I am.
I own a Kerala saree, like to eat kanji and payaru. speak the language, celebrate onam and vishu.
I stay away from other malayalees.
My children do not identify themselves as Malayalees at all. I never encouraged them either. I thought it was better that I raise them as a citizen of the world
I do not think of myself as a Malayalee beyond my ethnicity.
That in essential is the problem I face now.
I am constantly struggling with the values my mother used as a yard stick to raise us to the values I think is ideal for my children.
Amma would have had a heart attack if I had told her about my first crush when I was 7 years old. ( He and I had even decided who we were going to invite for our wedding! and we even finalized the menu for our wedding lunch. He liked fried fish and I liked mooru).
For me, I have no issues with my children having a crush . I have been there and know the feeling.
Yaya has been in and out of crush for the last few years.
Toothless has a crush on a girl in Canada and crush on a girl here.
Baby has a crush on a guy who is in grade 7 ( Yaya’s classmate!)
But would I let my Children go out with their boyfriend/girlfriend to the mall?
NO!
Of course I will be branded old fashioned just like ‘Ammachi’, when that happens.
Girls in Yaya’s class are already going out with their boyfriends to the movies etc.
I guess their mothers have no problems with it.
But I do.
Why?
I don’t know.
yes, mothering is the one thing that is learned almost entirely through on-the-job-training. I know that we said …. she will not be allowed to do this until this age or that has happened. In the end it always was about whether she was ready and we were ready for her to be ready. However, the world in general is tending to steal childhood from children today. I do not envy my grownup daughter and her husband (both raised in different cultures) their jobs as parents (if of course the EVER have those babies).
You may be old fashioned now but in 20 years you will be brilliant.
It is hard growing up in different worlds.Hard to instill the values we were grown up with to our children when they see things different around them.But we did and I am glad because as she grew older she understood why.
Absolutely understandable. I totally get it, plus they are still young and you really don’t know what they’ll do without your supervision (there are so many kids who are immature and they really can’t tell what a person’s intentions are). I hope you do allow them to date and everything when they are much older and let them find their own partners of marriage.
J1289: I have nothing against dating and don’t think there is an age limit to start dating. My son started dating when he was 12..
I have no intention of finding a partner for them either.. ( hopefully they won’t marry an Indian ! )