A dad's gotta do what a dad's gotta do

This is a really tough one. Jispa doesn’t like her school taekwondo teacher. He is a bit tough on the kids and the kids seem to hate that. Before him there was this fun teacher who taught them and made them play games while teaching them taekwondo. Last to last year I remember that just before the annual play off while practicing Jispa hit leg against the wall and got a sore foot. Her teacher then still motivated her and Jispa fought despite the pain. On the other hand this year she has been trying to get off the taekwondo co-curricular class.

Taekwondo is something that I was pretty keen on. I was keen that Jispa take up some form of martial art. It would stand her in good stead when she grows up and it also builds strength and discipline. The kicking in taekwondo also helps build legs, that possibly has a rub off effect on her swimming muscles. So it’s a good thing. Till the new teacher came in Jispa loved taekwondo and is now proficient enough to kick the wooden board that they use and break it in one clean swipe.  She was doing pretty well.

The problem is now that the teacher is one tough guy from the old school of hard knocks. He makes the kids practice hard and bores them to death by getting them to kick in the entire class. Then sometimes he denies them loo breaks or water breaks. I don’t know – what would happen if you don’t drink a bit of water in one hour. Then he scolds them if they get it wrong. Then he takes one kid aside and teaches him extra stuff. Then once when Jispa took a loo break he got another kid to teach her stuff she missed as opposed to teaching it himself.

When I heard this I was wondering. Where’s the issue. This sounds like the school I went to. My teachers were like this and the ones not like these were the exception rather than the norm. We all got screamed at, scolded and stopped from loo and water breaks. He seems like any of my PE teachers. Only a bit better. I remember getting whacked on the bum with a hockey stick as well. Ouch.

But the problem is that Jispa hates it. She positively hates it and I guess the class hates it as well. They seem to be bitching about the teacher within themselves a lot. The words that Jispa speaks has stuff that I would never have thought of her noticing. Its sounds like kids bitching together and coming to a conclusion that the teacher is bad.  Whatever the truth – Jispa hates the class. So today morning I had a longish chat with her. I understood and I then explained to her – “understand kid, this is similar to what I had in school. If the sir hits you then it’s bad, if he is partial all the time, then it’s bad. He took a kid aside and taught him extra because he must have seen something more. Remember he took you aside from your friends and made you kick the board and not let your friends do it. That time you did not complain. Don’t complain now. I think the issue was that your sir did not speak properly. He needs to talk sweetly to you guys. Or at least less harsh. Think again that seems to be the issue.” Jispa replied in affirmative. I guess she understood. I explained that its ok if someone screams. Let them scream as much as they want. It allright. What you want is for them to teach you. As long as he does that, its ok. As long as he doesn’t hit it ok. Rest we will manage. “but still” I added, I think I need to speak to him. I need to tell him that I think the kids are a little scared of you and don’t like being scolded. Can you please be a little more soft or little less hard on them. If I call him and do that, will that be enough”. Jispa nodded again.

So today was a test. To do something good for her while it being bad in the short term. Its tough really tough. I love my daughter. I surely don’t want her to have bad irritating teachers but also that is reality around you. People scream and speak rudely all the time. Get used to it. You can run from it. Especially if you are getting stuff that is good for you.

On Jispa’s guitar class, Jispa doesn’t have the will to practice every time. I also recognize that Jispa can’t do it. Just no time. With one full time sport it’s impossible to have one more hobby. Taekwondo is school is enough extra, on which we top up with swimming. Sorry man. I had to be the bad guy and say – fine Jispa. No guitar class anymore. She was a bit relieved as well. We can’t make her a super kid. I don’t want that. I wanted a simple kid, and yes a few great achievements would be nice. State swimming is good enough. To push her for more is sheer torture. And as parents I did not want to punish her anymore and quite frankly I thought the family was falling apart thanks to the hectic pace. I am most worried about Jasmine. Somehow being the super mom she is, I don’t think she knows what the pace was exacting upon her and her mind. Yes. I thought I had to be the final bad or tough guy. The guy taking all the decisions, especially if they are tough to be taken.

So I took the taekwondo decision and will take it to its logical conclusion and I have taken the guitar one as well. It’s best given the circumstances.

So anyone want a second hand guitar?

the new deal

I remember the first time I got pocket money. I think I was in fourth standard and it was a grand two rupees a month. I was so excited. It came from the blue, when our parents announced that we would now be eligible for pocket money. All three of us got different sums, and I being the youngest got the least at 2 bucks. I remember clearly getting that money and I remember think and counting, how many months will it take me to reach 50 bucks if I save it all. My pocket money reached 50 bucks a month till I was in the tenth and in college it was a grand 100 bucks a month. Here when I first entered college, it was the first time I was in town, roaming round with my new found friends. We all decided to go to Croissants etc, a bake shop. There I saw for the first time a chocolate croissant. I so loved it. Then I also tasted a cheese garlic croissant, yummmm. The chocolate one I remembered cost 11 bucks. Again my mental math told me that I could eat only about 9 a month. That’s it dude and that would mean no movies or anything else. Slowly my pocket money rose to hit 500 bucks a month till I finished my management education. 500 bucks was wow. That was good enough to support a lifestyle. Of course it helped that Jasmine was the rich one with her extra money coming in from tuitions she took for some neighbourhood kids. So she spent on us and I could make my pocket money go some way.
So I started with what I thought was a massive sum and ended with what I thought was a fair sum. In the middle I felt I didn’t have enough. I did not resent this or resent my parents for this. I was cool with it. One just simply did not have enough. We weren’t poor. We were gulf returnees who had saved up a pile. We had a cool house in a sky scraper but I guess the values of thrift that our parents wanted to put in us was a great thing. So while I had what I thought was inadequate I don’t ever remember me thinking it was unfair or unjustified. I was pretty cool with the money. If you don’t have , then you don’t have. No cribbing here.
But I still don’t like the pocket money concept. I don’t like a teen ager having to plan and save his money. These are his days to enjoy and spend, saving will come eventually. Sure the money is not unlimited but, the monthly pocket money concept is something I am not so cool with. It breeds more unfulfilled desire, which may come out in spending sprees when one is older I guess. But whatever, when Jispa recently was asking about pocket money, I wasn’t too cool with the idea. My first answer was that, we are with you all the time. Why do you need any money in any case? And when you want take it from us. Just let me know you want the money and I will give you. I had friends in school who got money on demand, sometimes I thought that was too much, but as long as you need to ask, what’s the issue. The tap control is with me. Jispa was not convinced. She wanted money for herself that she would spend on her own. Ok so that’s a problem. How do I give her a pocket money? Once a week, once a month? So I generally was chatting with her. She wanted once a week some sum. 10 bucks a week. That’s too low I thought. No point giving money that she will have nothing to spend on really. She also wanted to save some from that and put in her piggy bank. So you need enough to spend and save. If you want to promote savings, you need to have enough to save. So I put this question up on facebook and the overwhelming answer was to give some pocket money. And obviously the younger ‘friends’ voted for it. One other friend who is also a mother suggested that we must give money for doing chores around the house. Ok. so you don’t really get the money free, but you have to earn it.
Doing chores to get money was another bugbear for me. It’s quite a western concept. Working around the house is a family duty. You don’t need to get money to be motivated to work for the family and I hated doing the work and money would always be inadequate for what I thought would be great work. Ha. Plus I much rather pay the house help to do the work than get my kid to work for the money. I rather they work out of love or even guilt but not money. But this earning to get money got me thinking.
At the dinner table we were having a conference and we were discussing what to do about this conundrum and what must Jispa do to earn her pocket money. Till we hit a brain wave. Great. You get ten rupees a day if you practise guitar for 30 minutes. That’s it? Jispa asked. Yup that’s it. every day in the morning practise your guitar and you are eligible for ten whole bucks. That means you can make a cool 50 bucks a week. Jispa was super happy; she does what she likes to and gets PAID for it? ya. Get paid for it. But like the ultimate evil parent we too had sinister design, that are not too readily apparent. We too killed a dozen birds with one stone. To get 30 minutes of guitar time in the morning she has to - 1. Wake up on time. In other words her fussing to wake up must dramatically reduce from 15 minutes to 3. -2. She has to get in to the bath instantly. -3. She must finish her bath and brush in exactly ten minutes. -4 she must get herself ready after bath, wear her clothes etc without dreaming away. -5. She must sit to have breakfast. -6. She must finish her breakfast on time. -7 she must get up and wash her hands and face and get ready to get her hair combed. -8. She must then pack her bags and keep them ready – 9. She must then sit to practise her guitar at 6.55am which gives her 30 minutes to then wind up at 7.25 am to then wear her shoes, socks and run with me out of the house.
Believe me, these are the toughest 10 rupees she would ever make. She has been trying since the last week and she hardly managed one odd day in the middle a couple of days of 15 minutes practise. Though it was not a part of the deal; in fact it was a stated exclusion, I still paid her 5 bucks for 15 minutes. Poor thing. Today she got a tenner for the whole 30 minutes and another ten for the two intermediate ones.
The thing with being a kid is that no matter what deal you end up striking with dad, dad always wins. Somehow the parent gets it right and is able to see the hidden side of every deal. Man! Poor Jispa, she too is up against some huge odds. Every deal she makes with us, she ends up on the losing side. But at least look at the brighter side of things, I remember getting an incentive to help clean the wheat and help in the Diwali home cleaning, mopping and wiping. Here all she needs to do is strum a guitar. That’s it. Well... almost.

its in the schedule

There are so many demands on daily life, it is important for a schedule to be in place. otherwise I guess its just impossible the demands of conflicting priorities. Once in place also the schedule makes for certain rigidity that my anti establishment tendencies find pretty irritating. Right now I am at 35 managing to find a balance between the two. But my daughter at 8 is another thing altogether.
She wants to do a lot and she clearly enjoys it tremendously. But it drives jasmine up the wall. Till now the pressure of school work was minimum but slowly as the pressure cranks up the walls seem to be bulging.
Jispa has her reviews happening. A lot of school work faces two kind of responses. Jasmine who wants it to be given due importance and me… who couldn’t really care less. I prefer sweating over the creative and fun stuff. The elocution competition, the sports day, the taekwondo kicks, creative writing etc. but math and Hindi are still there in the curriculum when I last checked and we still count those marks for promotion. So I guess that’s a given. So every time Jasmine will be stressing out on the math and Hindi and I will be like – let it be, let it be. And when it comes to the other stuff, I am in complete command with Jasmine only overseeing.
I also realise that jasmine is right. So it makes for an interesting balance. Otherwise both of us would have gone completely bonkers and taken Jispa along with.
So right now in the middle of all her activity we are struggling to find time for practice for her. How so we squeeze in time for her school practice as the reviews have started and how do we find time for her guitar practice, without which it’s pretty much impossible to learn the instrument.
I was trying to understand the schedule. I have learnt that it only works if it is a part of the schedule that is followed everyday. Jispa is also a dreamer. Someone who thinks of interesting things all the time. The imagination will always be in hyper mode. I get my best ideas in the shower or when I eating or doing something of a routine. It’s not a get over with it attitude but the brain starts functioning overtime and its gets lost in its thoughts. Jispa does that and bang…. There goes the schedule. The morning is a special pain. So I did the next bets thing. Disciplining my self to wake up on time. If I don’t wake up on time, I can’t wake her on time and then we are constantly rushing.
If the waking time is crunched and the shower hits the face fast enough rest of eth morning is much better. Jispa will get at least 30 minutes to practice everyday and I can use that time to also read. The key is to get all ready by 7 am. It happened today but I am not overtly bullish on it happening everyday. She got her practice time for a good 30 minutes. Here is a pic of her practising the guitar today morning.


Today while reading in the morning I came across what John Wheeler said – “Everything important, at the bottom, is essentially simple.” This was not a philosophy book but a physics book and this was in the chapter that was talking about quantum physics. But I couldn’t agree more. Most of the smartest people I met have said the same thing. If it is too complex it cannot be right. My best marketing teachers have always said that. Last week I saw a play on the life of mathematician Ramanujan. They also said something to the effect that – a mathematical equation has to be beautiful. Beauty lies in simplicity not complexity.
Most of all that we see or face – the answers lie in simple steps or terms. Can we have that one lens (Thank you Dharen for this example) through we which we can see everything and make sense of the complex games at play. Can we understand it so well that we can explain it to our mother (thank you prof Navalkar for this example). But essentially we only know it well if we can explain it well enough that a child could possible understand it.
I love it when Jispa asks me questions. It gives me great pleasure in explaining stuff to her. Yesterday she was talking about how stickers stick but don’t stick on the paper it comes in. interesting question. In trying to help her understand it I think I too cleared my mind on it. She then gets encouraged to ask more and more. What fun. I love this bit of parenting as well.
This too is only possible if I fit the schedule. Most of our father daughter interaction happens in the morning when I get to drop her to the bus stop. It get as high as the history of Indo Pak relations to something that is as sublime as sailing paper boats on the roadside streams near the bust stop. The latter is of particular interest to us and we hope for a decent stream everyday.

learn well

We have been struggling with Jispa’s classes. We believe in extra curriculars and the value of getting right guidance and opportunity early on but the sheer breadth of what she is doing is leaving us a little.. I don’t know a little worried, amused, sceptical, scared…
To list – she has a core activity in school. She learns taekwondo there twice a week. Then five days a week she goes to swim. Now thanks to the coaching she swims well and knows all the strokes. She is progressing well and swimming fast. I am happy. Swimming is something that would last her for life and a good swimming will help her keep fit. Thrice a week after the swimming class she goes for some badminton. That’s also a good thing. I guess.
We don’t know for sure if she can take all this physical exertion. It is tough and we are worried. But jasmine and I are quite clear; we are not pushing her to do all this. We keep asking her if she is enjoying all this. Doe she really want to do it? Is she getting tired at any point/ we don’t want to be parents who push the kid into all sorts of activities and punish the child. But Jispa is super eager and willing. She wants to do it and she enjoys it all.
We also realise that right now there is little school home work. Her pressure will start from the fourth or the fifth standard. Then she would have to give up some of her activities and concentrate on a just a few. Till then, Jasmine recons that she is free to have her fun. Also what helps is that this is all TV time that is being spent playing and training. She comes home to dinner and reading. Saturday Sunday is rest time and sometimes I drag her to the garden. She is active and loves that as well.
Recently she decided that she wanted to learn the guitar. Oh god. How and where. Jasmine figured that a friend had a sir coming home and was teaching the guitar to her kid. Jispa was quite eager to join. I have always wanted to learn music and one of my current thoughts was that both jasmine and I don’t know music. That is one thing that we would be absolutely unable to teach her. We have no clue.
As a kid once I decided I wanted to learn the guitar. My dad encouraged me and bought me a guitar. An expensive proposition in those days. It cost a bomb. I remember 500 bucks for a Givson guitar. I learnt it a bit but complete laziness in practice and no push and I started to flounder and completely missed that bus.
I have thought a lot about it since then. This was in the sixth standard. Why did I not learn? Was I just not made for it? Did I not enjoy it?
I think that learning anything requires a bit of pain and a lot of discipline. It did not come naturally to a sixth grader like me. I was a maverick in many ways. Could I have changed? i see so many households that music is an intrinsic part of their lives. They breathe music and it plays from every corner and every reason is a good reason to play or listen to music. For me music never held too much importance. It is nice and good but I could go on and live my life without music. I enjoy it but ... just that it isn’t that necessary as I see others live and breathe it. I was happy growing up to my brother and sister’s choice of music. I couldn’t care less. If it’s on – good, if its off good. I am not the type to ‘invest’ in a fantastic player.
Jispa seems to be enjoying her music. and I really did not want to say no to her for learning anything. Jasmine would shoulder a lot of the responsibility in taking her to the classes and ensuring she does pay attention. Jispa went for one class and came back eager for more. The time had come to buy her a guitar as there is no point going for classes once a week and not practising at home. A guitar for her would cost around three thousand. I had a chat with Jispa. I told her that it’s not the money. We can afford it and more. I don’t care about the money but if we are buying you a guitar you better practice it daily. I did not want any guilt feelings on her for spending money, but I sure don’t want her abandoning pursuits on a whim. That is something I refuse to let her do. So before sleeping every day, she has to practice a bit. I told her that I would insist on it and ensure mom insists as well. Sometimes we would scold her and make her do it, even against her wishes. She agreed and she got her brand new guitar.
I believe that kids are keen to learn new stuff but then tend to get bored by the long grind between knowing a bit and then experiencing the fun of then knowing a little more. This was the same thing in swimming and her other pursuits. You have to get through the second phase when the practice gets boring and you don’t get immediate results. Once you pass through this you tend to pick things and learn enough for what will stay for life. I guess that’s where the parent’s push comes in. Give the opportunity, push to ensure the boredom phase passes, and then back off. No pressure to perform. None from us. Pressure to learn well but don’t give great emphasis on performance.
My parents held me responsible for buying an expensive guitar and then letting go. That huge thing in the house kept reminding then that I quit. I won’t let that happen to Jispa. It came up in many conversations later. I guess I was at fault. But at least I know the mistake I made. At least I will let Jispa make new ones. I will for sure make new ones. No point forgetting old lessons.
Pushing and then backing off. Parenting is such a fine line that I never know where exactly to draw. actually its not a line its a zone kid of line. It merges slowly from one side to another. Makes sense? No?... Exactly.