Mothering ways in India
Mothers all over the world are same but mothering ways are not. I realised this truth when I gave birth to H. I had married into a really warm and close family where each member was full of respect love and care for one another. Yet when H, the first grand child was born, this love, respet and care started diminishing rapidly; and the simple reason for this was my different mothering style. There is a horrifying lack of knowledge in India in many common spheres and pregnancy and child care is just one of them. Despite being educated and sufficiantly advanced, people rigidly resist advanced approach in this particular field and continue to be blindly led by centuries old tales and techniques. Practically, no thought is given to child's safety and comfort and carrying the baby in your arms every minute of the day, and thrusting nipples in his mouth at the first sign of cry from him is considered the highest epitome of motherhood.
I had read from experts in this field and wanted to raise my baby the pediatrician recommended method which gives specific guidelines (and reasons) on everything that should and should not be done with the baby right from diapering to feeding and even handling or behaving with the baby.
I gave birth to H in Netherlands via a C-section. We were alone at the hospital with no family member near us. Now, when I come to think of it, I feel it was a blessing in disguise because if our relatives had been there at that time, I would never have got the chance to raise H in my way. We left Netherlands for India when H was just 2 months old but luckily by then his many basic habits had been established.
Well, when I reached home, a totally different world awaited both of us.
They all, even the neighbours, were shocked to notice that H was kept in diapers, slept seperately in his own bed, needed no efforts to fall asllep because as soon as he was laid in his crib, he would fall asllep on his own, was formula fed and fed on precise clock schedule, given a pacifier, was bathed in a tub half immersed in water, and wasn't carried all the time in arms. All these sound perfectly normal and down - to - earth commonplace in every part of the world but not in India where all this is tantamount to abnormal, weird or downright stupid..! Here a baby is only cloth diapered made out of old sarees and bedsheets, or kept naked below, sleeps essentially with his parents ( till he is 12-15 yrs or even more), given a honey filled pacifier or encouraged to suck his thumb, given thick kajal in his eyes and a huge kajal spot on his forehead or cheeks to ward off evil sights (and make an evil sight of the poor baby himself consequently), his whole body is thickly smared with oil and generally obnoxious smelling mustard oil at that !- no sweet smelling stuff ), in cases of inability to breastfeed he drinks unpastuarised cow's milk, fed whenever he cries, constantly carried in arms, get his ears pierced within 1-2 weeks and wears heavy gold/silver or pearls jewellary like bracelets, earrings, necklaces and anklet rings. Furthermore, according to tradition, no new clothes are bought for him and he is kept in old almost beggarly looking rags which are neither even clothes to begin with nor of his size; and when the poor fellow does get some clothes after a few weeks they are usually the unworldly frocks and the knicker shirts type stuff which the family's children had worn one or two generations ago. In short, nothing is bought for him,no bed, no bed clothes, no dresses, no baby bath tub, no baby's personal care items like cream, shampoo, oil, hair brush, baby towel, etc.
Initially, they attributed my new methods to my being a new and so an entirely ignorant mother. The whole army of family, friends, relatives, visitors and even the servants regarded me with friendly sympathy and started telling me what to do to help me out of my so called weird ignorant mothering ways. They advised me that I shouldn't keep him in diapers all the time as it will stop his penise growth and make him impotent, distort his gait by making his legs abnormally seperate from one another and remaining that way all his life, delay his sitting and walking developments. They insisted that the pacifier was bad for him because it was empty. I should fill it with honey because then he will enjoy it and get something to eat too; instead he should be encouraged to suck his thumb.They all thought I starved H and dindn't feed him whenever according to them he was hungry, didn't breastfeed him to preserve my figure, diapered him for my convenience and bathed him ignorantly. Why don't I just wipe his body with moist cloth ? What is the need to put him in the tub and submerge him? I shouldn't bathe him for so long ( 7-10 mins) his body will become stiff and will ache.They insisted that I should sugar down his formula ( drinking milk without sugar and that too at room temperature was unimaginable for them !)
My parents in law religeously used to thrust Tuesday laddoo in his mouth when poor H was just 2 months old. This is really nothing as my mom in law, purely out of affection and love,fed H with tea drops ( the one with sugarfree as she is diabetic) regularly every morning and evening and despite being requested not to do so, she continued doing it and telling us blandly that she hadn't.
They all would keep playing with him even when he was tired and wanted to sleep; and would keep rocking him in arms even when he had been asleep for more than an hour or so.
I recieved some baby jewellary items and a lot of coaxing to make him wear them but H continued to remain without any jewellary, kajal, heavily oiled hair and body and those particular type of Indian baby dresses which involves gaudy colours, violent patterns and agressive designs and definitely some of them are far from being even safe as they have lose tiny buttons, beads, hard sequins, rough lace, big buckles etc etc. I always dressed him in pastal blues and decent Ts and knickers or dungrees or onsies. This style was looked down upon as stupid and dull.
They insisted that I should daily put oil in his head because his head must be aching lying down all the time; I should massage his feet to relieve the pain in his legs, ( because he keeps kicking his legs in air in his lying down position), I should give him whole body massage with mustard oil at least 5 times a day ( to help grow his bones and muscles otherwise he will not grow), put oil in his ears otherwise he will become deaf, rub honey on his gums otherwise he will get painful teething, never show him a mirror- his teeth will come out crooked and he will become frightened too to see his image , and regularly put oil in his penis - if I don't - his penis will not grow and he will become impotent. As H was very little at that time his feet still used to be in bent position like all little babies have and a neighbour actually suggested me to regularly tie both his little legs tightly together with a long piece of cloth to straighten them ! They constantly coaxed him to speak something and when he did't they said his tounge was too big that's why he could'nt speak. H was a happy, contented little baby and never cried except just occasionaly, but then too, whenever he would cry, or show signs of displeasure, they would say he was hungry and if I triumphantly told them he had had his milk just 20 minutes ago then they would come up with something like "OH, his head has not been oiled, it must be aching, that's why he is crying, or he had a long bath in the afternoon, his body has become stiff and achy because of the bath that's why he is crying.....!!!"
Wow, I really don't know which of these tales should bag the first position for being the craziest.
Why is there such a big difference in child raring in India as compared to the rest of the world?Does raising your baby the educated, civilised way mean you love him less? or bring up your baby the uneducated, rustic way mean you love your baby more? Just because someone has had 5-6 babies does not mean she knows best on this subject.
Now H is one and half years old and amongst all the children he mixes up with, he is the most mannered and well behaved boy and having just the right and desired regular habits, while the other kids, younger or older than him happily lick away ice creams, toffees and chocolates, don't drink milk, have no particular lunch/ dinner time, don't nap and go to sleep any time they want , share their parent's bed, wear clothes that are often unflattering and uncomfortable and sport heavy jewellaries.
The only place where H has given me trouble is his eating. He never liked to drink and when I started him on solids he clearly told us that he didn't like eating either. He pukes at the very mention of food or by merely looking at his spoon or bib. I had to force him to eat to keep him healthy. Often he would vomit 3-4 times a day while eating. We consulted several renowned pediatricians but everything was found to be completely normal with him and the only reason was his desire. He doesn't like to eat. Inevitably here too, I faced stiff opposition and interfearnce with my relatives. His especially cooked and pureed porriges and khichdis ( rice lentil veggie soup) and pureed fruits and vegetables in milk etc were frowned upon. They said, I plainly didn't know how and what and how much to feed him. I fed him too much; babies don't eat that much- just a spoon of dal or a pinch of rice is sufficient for a single meal time. And why the hell do I insist on a meal time? why can't I let him eat whenever he wants? They preferred dipping their bare finger in all the adult spicy food on table and encouraging him to lick it. However, even that trick didn't work.
Really, here, there is no concept of regular and proper baby food either.
There's a friend of mine who used to give raw almond paste to her newborn preemie to make the baby's skin and hair turn good. Another preemie is largely being fed icecream although poor baby is just 5 months old.)
I never put oil in his ears or penis. I got him checked out with a ped who clearly told me what I already knew by my research work that his penis is completely ok. Of course, for his hearing,, he had already been checked out in Amsterdam when he was only a week old. I never gave him honey untill he was out of his first year. I never sugared his milk or meals and always fed him on schedule. He always sleeps independantly in his own bed and has fixed time for taking his naps. So when we are out on a long trip or journeying we know exactly when to give him milk or his lunch or food and he knows when he has to sleep. He had always loved his bath time but never more so than now as he has now a big adult bath tub in which he loves sitting ( held by me, of course ) immersed in water till his shoulders and keeps splashing and playing with bath toys. He loves watching himself in the mirror. He has no habit of snatching food or crying for toffees and lollipops. He still dresses in pastal blues and believe me, he is the most beautiful boy we all have seen. Even the Germans here feel amazed at his European looks.
I do feel deeply sad that my insistance for following my own ways or rather I should say the right ways to mother my baby has created a rift between me and the family but I have the satisfaction that I am giving my baby the best that I am capable of. They still believe that I know nothing about raising a baby whereas they know all. They still feel enraged and offended that I didn't obey their advices. The most common thing that they have to say is afterall they too gave birth to 5-6 children and nothing happened to them, but they forget that maybe they were fortunate that nothing happened to their children but everyone cannot be as lucky and doubtless because of this reason India has so low infant and child mortality rate as compared to other parts of the world.And yes, I never feel like forgiving those parents, especially those mothers who despite being educated and well broughtup and exposed, continue to bring up their children the dreaded way.
Child raising is clearly horrible in India.
Whatever I have mentioned is just the tip of an ice berg; there are much more horrible practises taking places regarding this subject. Of course India is a yet developing nation and not so very wealthy at that with a bursting population and compartively low litracy level but the problem is all these these things are practiced by literate urban people too, in fact even those who have been to or a living in abroad.
Even Indian peadiatricians advise ignorant mothers to do dangerous or unhealthy things. They allow newborns to feed on honey and unpasturaised cow/ buffalo milk till their mothers start lactating and prescribe adult medicines to infants; they don't even carefully examine the baby and instead of advising on healthy eating they prescribe lots of multi vitamines, health tonics, appetite boosters, digestive syrups etc. to infants. A little baby (6-7 months) was suffering from fever so they told them to feed her lots of ice creams to keep her cool; H wasn't drinking milk and they told me I could give him adult tea, he might like it. I am a first hand witness of all this and feel totally disgusted.
I want to add here that I am not opposed to attachment parenting, breast feeding, co sleeping and self feeding; but isn't there a difference between the sensible and the senseless ?
