Yesterday I got a glimpse of the consequences of having a
daughter.
Some time back a fashionable pretty young thing joined my
team. She had long nails. Looking at them I remarked “long nails?”. “are you
allowed long nails?”. She looked at me wondering. “are they not allowed?”. I
kept her guessing and gave evasive answers. The PYT was stressed. I ask her to
ask around. My team that was watching it all pounced like a pack of wolves
saying it wasn’t. They all proceeded to show off their nails. The PYT wasn’t really
convinced. Afterwards she caught another girl (wolf in sheep clothing) and
asked her if the requirement was real. This other girl confirmed it.
PYT then comes back after the weekend with her nails chopped
off. I look at them and ask incredulously “you chopped them off? Why did you do
that? Did I tell you to chop them? I only asked if they were ok. But if you
wanted them I would have definitely fought with HR if it was not allowed. Dint
you like ask around?”. “I did” she protested. “They all told me to chop them
off, since they are not allowed”. She fell for it, hook line and sinker. Then
she said something even weirder “I chopped them off over the weekend and I cried”.
“cried?”. “ya, they take so long to grow for me an di have to take care of them
to grow them. SO I cried when I had to cut them”. Ok now the pranksters were
feeling a wee bit sorry about the whole thing. And I was wondering how dumb
does one have to be to fall for this and how sensitive must one be towards
nails.
Jispa’s school has begun to have a soft approach towards
nails, is what I was told by Jasmine. Possibly it is the class teacher or whoever
but the kids in Jispa’s class, or more specifically the girls in Jispa’s class
have started growing nails. Jasmine routinely chops off Jispa’s nails. They get
dirty and we don’t believe that a ten year old still can grow nails. Jispa too
is only a bit reluctant to chop them off. But this time she was showing a
little less enthusiasm to chop her nails. While Jasmine was chopping them off,
she did not want to give her thumb. This was in the morning when there is no
time for anything else and I just firmly told her to get them chopped. She
heard me and let out her thumb. After Jasmine chopped that nail, Jispa was
pretty upset. Huh? It’s just a nail girl. What are you so upset about? And didn’t
her school not allow long nails. Jasmine explained her schools recent laxity
towards nails. But Jispa was pretty upset. WHAT? What’s so upsetting? Well it
seems that she was growing her one thumb nail. She was ok with all the others
being trimmed but the thumb… that was the one she was growing. And man was she
upset…? I felt like the big mean beast.
I asked Jasmine “do you really need to cut it?”. “of course,
she plays with it all the time. While studying she is fiddling with it”. “ok.
lets get a compromise. Now on, you can grow your thumb but you ensure its clean
and if you play with it even once while studying, it will be cut.” That mollified
her a little bit. Just a little bit. I later even probed if it was a peer
issue. It didn’t turn out to be one where everyone is growing it and she would
be left out. It’s a simple case of Jispa being a girl. And girls like nails.
Fullstop.
And my girl is growing up and growing her nails. I don’t know
when the taekwondo kicker will become girlie and start painting her nails and
wondering if her hair is in order all the time. And dam, the day she buys a
cute little red dress to match her red paint and set her hair, I will simply
jump off the floor. Oh man. I was lucky all this while as my little girl wasn’t
the prim and proper fashion miss. She was cool and had a style of her own. But
this nail incident has really awakened me from my slumber. We’ll figure. We’ll
live.
