Is your child THE ticket to your social life?

Yes, I am a bit irked. And the post will explain why. But please don’t assume that any one person is the center of my universe—as in the topic for this post. Some emotions are cumulative. Some emotions are spiked because of unusual interactions. Some emotions are evoked because of the insanity involving people’s behavior. And last night happened to trigger all of the above.

History has proveth that the war between married and unmarried women has been long ongoing. Even decades later, some things don’t change. I have often heard married women, mind you it is always women telling stories and whining and not so much men, complain about how they can’t always do the things their single friends do. Marriage changes their emotional status more than what’s required. A ring on the finger, and they almost want to feel captive and unnecessarily important. I find the whole drama nauseating.

No one is denying that priorities change when you are in a relationship and/or married. But marriage shouldn’t mean the death of your remaining ties. Most modern, reasonable men don’t want a slave to serve them. They’d much rather be with a person who has their own life too. Hello, there is a beautiful concept called “space.”

Most men I have spoken with want their beer and sports time too. And they don’t want a noose around their neck—their woman focusing her energy solely on only their relationship. If you want a healthy bond, please “allow” your man to be a friend, son, and sibling aside from just being “your guy.” Each of these roles adds value and is important.

I also get annoyed when married women rub their marital status in their single friend’s faces. Well, honey, we got it. You have a man and you have it made. You made a choice. And not all single women are alone out of their own free will. Circumstances and crap happens. Not narcissism but empathy will go a long way.

What riles me up even more than obsessive married women—some of these pretentious, socially inept, young moms, who finally find a social, not individual, identity because of their children. All of a sudden, having a baby allows them human interaction, a ticket to finally making social connections, and a reason to justify their existence. Also, a kid is the best excuse to use—be it getting out of family commitments, hosting a social event, meeting up with friends, or wanting to sound busy. Do they assume everyone else is just plain stupid?

Haven’t you met women and/or couples, who never really had friends (umm, signs of social inadequateness?), and the minute their kid was able to lift its head/started going to play school, they began to drop names. And highlights of their self-invented busy schedules. Most of these people do little but talk a lot—having a kid gives them the license to bullshit without being caught. News flash: if you weren’t like able as a single or married woman/man, no one is your big fan even today. People tolerate you because your child/children is pleasant and/or a companion for some other kids. And most humans will do anything for their kids, including putting up with a moron.

Most of us with a real life (Doesn’t matter whether we are single, married, working women, or stay at home moms) and friends don’t need to prove to anyone how we spend our 24 hours. Life comes in phases (People close to us will understand & respect the newness), and we deal with the commitments without ignoring all the real people in our lives. It is always the ones with no purpose that stir up trouble.

I am not saying all married women and young moms are nasty and should be tuned out. Not at all. That would be an awful exaggeration. And not just because I am married too. JI have friends whom I admire as they manage to keep such a classy balance between their professional and personal lives. I look up to them. No one relationship defines their identity. And no one person rips off their reality. They never need to prove what all they achieve in a day. But such mature people are few and far in between. Sadly, women, especially when insecure, become vicious. And very often the insecurities are self-inflicted.

As humans, we try to make our lives easier for ourselves—not have to explain our choices. It’s understood that singles might exist in a different mental zone and would interact more with single friends. Similarly married couples might find more in common with two-member households. And couples with young ones would like to befriend others with the same familial structure. That’s not the point. True relationships need to be beyond age, income, social status, or pedigrees. And when you use your child as the ticket to your social life, it's time for some deep introspection! Remember, your kid is going to grow up one day, and if you haven’t grown as a human being, you’ll be back to those lonely, dark days because even your support structure would have moved on.

More until next time,

Xoxo

Copyright © 03.28.2012

“Life is a ticket to the greatest show on earth.”~ Martin H. Fischer

(B)rat-remedy

The other day, a friend of mine attended a pre-school admissions workshop, in NYC, for her toddler. Her description of the other mothers (very - Stepford wives) and their inquisitiveness about anyone, who didn’t look like them (They asked my friend which planet she was from), reminded me of a book I recently read--“Schooled” by Anisha Lakhani.

I won’t call Schooled the “World’s Best Book,” but it was inexplicably addictive. The content fell in the following category: Oh- that- makes- me-so- mad-that- I could- just-smack-someone. The book is a younger and opulent version of one of my all time favorite writer, E.R. Braithwaite’s “To Sir with Love”. Schooled, unlike To Sir With Love which is set in mid-60s Britain, is focused on a private school on the Upper East Side in New York City and its covetous kids (and worldly teachers). I cringe every time I think about seventh graders (characters in the book) carrying Chanel bags to school and bemoaning any brand which wasn’t in that league. But, can you truly believe a child is culpable of social ineptness if the parents bringing them up don’t tell them otherwise? Children are a reflection of their own parents. Then again, some parents don’t know better because they haven’t had the exposure themselves. Money and culture don’t always go hand in hand, you know.

What’s the best way to get your hands dirty with real life? I think it’s by living away from home in your formative years. The exact age doesn’t matter, but it is imperative. Folks, who have always lived at home, tend to have sheltered upbringing and almost never had to compromise. It’s not like they are terrible human beings, but they’ve rarely needed to think for others. There are always exceptions to every rule. But, growing up, most families in my generation had two kids so you pretty much got your way. Eating “Tandoori chicken” instead of “Pao Bhaji” because your sister insisted or playing Golf on the Wii instead of Boxing to make your brother happy doesn’t exactly make you Florence Nightingale. In fact, these so-called gestures are a joke for the word “sharing.”

Being away from the paradise of parental love and support teaches you to adjust, accommodate, survive, multi-task, comprehend, and appreciate the smallest of gestures. Like filling up a bucket of hot water for your injured friend and in the process skipping your own bath day, does qualify for real gestures and relationships. If you have always lived at home, getting your way & being spoilt is inevitable; the degrees may vary depending on the parents’ affluence and tolerance. I mean, you meet and become friends with people, who are clones of your own self—a.k.a. your parents’ friends’ offspring. Now that can’t be healthy. It’s like marrying within the family.

Every parent tries to give their own kin the best that they can afford without realizing that they might actually be doing them disservice. Life isn’t about one person or child’s needs. My boarding school rules didn’t permit us to wear anything aside from our boring uniforms, EVER! Sure, the teenager in me loathed their Nazi rules then, but as an adult, I appreciate their thoughtfulness. The authorities knew all of us didn’t come from the same financial background, so while one child had enough money for a silk shirt and designer jeans, the other child could just afford an ordinary shirt. Those values made my friends and me responsible, sensitive, and aware of the world around us. Like, you can’t discuss your Europe vacation with someone who hasn’t stepped out of Bombay or Meirut. Your financial abilities should make you humble and socially conscious instead of asininely ostentatious.

If these children in Schooled or the gauche moms, who expressed their astonishment to see my non-blond friend, were exposed to the real world (a multi-ethnic Diaspora beyond their limited knowledge of existence), they would probably have made for more evolved human beings.

More until next time.
Xoxo

Copyright © 05.21.2009

“Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you” – Oscar Wilde