Writing to Prompts

At my weekly writing group, we’ve been using prompts to nudge us out of our respective writers’ blocks. I had forgotten how enjoyable this exercise can be. I encourage anyone who has not tried this before or even if you have, to give it a shot. You can look for prompts online or create some on your own. Here are a couple I worked with these last few weeks.

Write about something that you would never do…

Jump out of a plane voluntarily is something I would never do. Never do again, that is. I am afraid of heights and not particularly comfortable with flying. So it must have been because I was newly married and wanted my husband to think of me as adventurous that I decided to take the plunge. The rickety old plane took off and there was nothing about the experience that seemed safe. The plane had benches, not seats with belts and the doors did not close even as the Twin Otter sped down the runway and heaved off the ground. The slightest tilt of the plane and we would have been scattered all over the sky before we splattered on the ground.

I sat there smiling bravely at my husband through clenched teeth. Thankfully he didn’t know yet that I would never smile that way under normal circumstances. He got the signal to jump first and as he dropped effortlessly out of the door, I thought that might be the last I ever saw of him. Oh well, maybe I shouldn’t bother jumping after all. I wouldn’t have if I wasn’t strapped to the instructor who was now pushing me to the door for my first tandem jump. I tried to reason with him that I did not need to do this any more, but this is precisely the turn around they’re trained for. Over my protests he pushed me to the edge and the next thing I knew we were in the air. The moments after that were fragmented as my mind tried to grasp the abnormality of the situation. Chaos within, loud shuddering without, as we hurtled down rapidly. Disjointed images-- the plane above, other divers below, falling fast, a body of water below, patchwork of farms, the horizon at odd angles-- until I heard the faint voice of the instructor get clearer and louder as he repeatedly yelled in my ear to pull the toggle to open the parachute. I don’t recall who eventually yanked it open but I remember the sudden jolt of the ropes tug my brain back into producing a continuous picture. The parachute fluttered open above us and almost immediately all was calm. I was still alive….as was my husband.

Looking for something we’ve lost...

When people start drifting toward the edge of the platform, you know the train is coming. The closer it gets, the closer to the edge of the platform the swarm of people move, like they’re glued together.  Once you’ve decided that’s the train you want to board, you do not have a choice. You cannot change your mind. I hear the soft swooshing sound of the train punctuated by the thumping of my heart that is getting louder as the woman behind me slowly pushes me forward. I in turn nudge the woman in front of me. Now I see the forbidding façade of the train. If you’ve ever seen the front of a train up close, it seems more intimidating than if you saw it from a distance. Collectively, we feel a gust of wind as the train speeds by in front of us. Although it’s slowing down, it is still dangerously fast for us mortals. Much before it comes to a stop, people closest to the edge of the platform grab the handlebars of the doors and throw themselves into the moving train. Here, for the uninitiated, I must mention that the commuter trains in Bombay don’t have fancy doors that open only once the train has come to a stop. No. We live on the edge. There’s a wide open space where a door would be for those inclined to being alive. But in this situation, I cannot imagine a train with a door. By now the group of women and men in front of me have already boarded and found coveted window seats even before the train has slowed down. Before I know it, it’s my turn. I zero in on the next door handle and grab it as it whizzes by. I have caught it every time for the last few years. The thought that I might miss it someday and get sucked onto the track has never occurred to me.

Depending on my mood I would either be in front of the crowd or skirt the periphery at the back. If I was fairly close to the edge of the platform, chances are I would get a breezy window seat so that would set the pace for a relaxed day. But then there were days when I felt energized and excited about an idea for the magazine I worked for and on those mornings a window seat just wouldn’t do. These were the days when I waited for everyone to get their window seats, all the other seats, let them fill up the aisles to capacity and when the last group of people filed into the standing space near the doors and the train gave that familiar jolt before it gained speed within seconds, is when I grabbed the handle to the door. Being the last one on the train is the most exhilarating experience of my time in Bombay. You have a strip of space for your feet at the very edge of the door, as you stand half out and half in the train. Not suffocated by the sweat of the person standing next to you. The wind blowing in your face as the train bolts down the track with a rhythmic sway. Trees, shrubs, fences, buildings, shops, dogs, cows, children playing by the track, whiz by in a blur. As the train approaches the next station, I see a similar swarm of people that I was just part of at the last station and I look for a good time to jump off the train. I don’t get to my destination till six stations later but this is the price you pay for fresh air- you jump off and on the train at every station or you would cause a riot by obstructing the entrance.

More than a decade later, I no longer think of myself as invincible. When I visit Bombay, the crowds make me nervous and the smell of sweat and urine in the air makes me queasy. The days when I could spend an hour’s commute with fishermen and their morning catch of pomfret and prawns are long gone. As a resident of a first world country, I sometimes wish I still had the ability to enjoy less than perfect conditions.

We make embarrassingly clingy parents

We are but temporary guardians for our children. We should reconcile with the fact that after a few years of feeding, educating, loving, and occasionally scolding them, we will have to let them go. Well, we should let them go.

It happened to us. A lot of us don't even live in the same continent as our parents anymore. As a daughter I am rational about this reality. But the same gets turned on its head as a mother.

I went to boarding school when I was 12-years-old. I had joined a few months into the school year and after leaving my luggage at the dorms, we went to the academic block where classes were in session. My class teacher was called to the head master’s office to be introduced to my parents and me. From there it was a quick goodbye and I walked to class with the teacher. I don’t remember crying because I knew there was a room full of new faces I was about to meet. After that I was on my own settling into the new environment, trying to make friends, following some very rigid rules and my parents had no part to play in these struggles. I was on my own. Except for the weekly letter we all wrote during the last period on Fridays, there was no other contact with my family. Certainly no phone calls. My parents wrote to me once a week and I went home to them twice a year for the next four years. At the end of each vacation, my father helped me and my luggage onto a bus in New Delhi. I remember him cheerfully wave goodbye as the bus hurtled away into the foothills of the Himalayas for an eight hour journey to school. He did not hear from me till after the following Friday’s letter reached him. It could easily have been a week to ten days. I have fond memories of that time and remember generally being happy. This is how it was for me as a daughter.

As a mother- our five-year-old son started Kindergarten this year and did not like being in school for six hours every day. For all the freedom it gave me, I did not love the idea of him being unhappy for all those hours. It broke my heart to see him cling to me and cry.  When the teacher closed the door to the classroom, I lingered outside for a few minutes to peep into his class through the window and it broke my heart all over again to see him sit there all alone on the rug hunched over and sad.

What is wrong with me?! Over the years my parents dropped me off at boarding school, sent me for overnight trips, sent me to college, said goodbye at the airport after I got married and now I live all the way across on the other side of the world. If they were ever sad, they certainly never expressed it and that made it easier for me to enjoy my independence knowing that no one was pining for me. Even now I call them once in two - three weeks. See them once in three years when I go to India.

Will I be able to give my children as much space as ungrudgingly when they leave home? Even though I know from my experience that this distance away from their parents is what will shape them as individuals?

Blame it on cell phones and other means of constant connectivity, but these days friends and family who send their children to college manage multiple schedules across multiple time zones. The adult child is monitored every step of the way- the choice of subjects, assignments, tests, whether or not the he/she is eating a nutritious meal, their friends, weekend activities. All the information is online and parents find it harder to cut the cord. Generations of parents before us had no choice but to raise independent children.

It's different for us. From the moment they start school we’re in their classrooms, we’re with them on field trips, we walk/ drive them to school much longer than required. For me school was not a shared experience with my parents. When I left home in the morning (walking alone, of course) I did not expect to see my mom or dad walk into my classroom to help groups with reading two hours after I had said goodbye to them. It was bad enough that I had to deal with the trauma of having my parents meet my teachers twice a year. I would not have survived a weekly meeting between them and my teacher!

Surviving startups as a family

It’s been a few months since my last post. Well, I’m one half of a couple that thrives on start ups. What do you expect!? Our lives change directions overnight. With a less than 4-5% success rate, we’ve had quite a few companies shut down mid school year, mid apartment lease, even mid vacation. As abrupt as most of these exits from folded companies are, we have the drill down - call Kaiser to start the process on health insurance, bubble wrap the kids till the insurance kicks in a month or two later, look for guitar lessons for the husband at the local community college (perhaps this will be the sabbatical that ends with a tune we recognise...), apply for unemployment, explain to the kids why dad’s home reading a lot, look for ways to cut costs because it’s time to dip into those savings, and of course my husband’s favorite- take an afternoon nap!  

To survive as a family in a startup environment is challenging, riddled with uncertainty, filled with periods of intense frugality but ultimately rewarding. The trick is to keep an even keel through bouts of euphoria (there’s a deal on the horizon- we might finally get to cash in on those few percentage points of equity and make our millions!) or deep troughs (our business just got delayed by crucial weeks because of some random technicality.) The spouse closer to these problems will of course be dealing with these issues more emotionally, but my job is to keep the balance at home no matter what. The kids still need to get to that soccer game, homework is still due tomorrow so you know, life has to go on regardless of what the future looks like.  

More so this time around because we’ve taken a deeper plunge. Disillusioned with the kind of jobs he was being offered and the lack of ingenuity in any of the startups he looked into, my husband decided to start one of his own along with a friend. This meant the family had to be prepared for more than just a few months of uncertainty, a closer economic huddle, another relocation and did I mention a lot of uncertainty?

It’s been almost nine months since the last time my husband worked for someone else and so far it’s been a great learning for all of us. My husband of course has the actual company to build and the excitement, on most days, is palpable. But for our two grade school age children, this opportunity could not have come at a better time. While many of our peers worry about the materialistic world constantly tempting their children, the only ‘Apple’ products our kids own are made by them ...out of paper. Most of the things we need are bought at garage sales or Craigslist and they know new toys are only for birthdays. Then too, the budget is a whopping $30.

The difference between ‘want’ and ‘need’ is clear to all of us because we’re all in this together!

Over the years my husband and I have devised various strategies to deal with this constant upheaval. Perhaps if there’s interest I could detail some of them on a later post.

Peer pressure...among parents

In first grade my oldest wanted to learn chess as part of an after school program. The other girls in her class decided to stick together for the cheer leading class. It made me so proud when my daughter still picked chess and enjoyed it even though there were just two other girls in that group.

I have always encouraged her to do what she wants and not worry about the popular choices. Whether it is her Indian name, the fact that she loves playing soccer and basketball with boys, that she always prefers to wear sneakers and not sandals and is not fixated on the color pink. It’s a long list and she owns these decisions with pride and so far doesn’t care about or enjoy doing things most other girls sometimes do just because it’s popular.

I think most parents try to encourage their children to accept their differences and not follow the herd. But many parents don’t lead by example when it comes to their families.   

Children attend preschools that send back homework and four-year-olds have to learn their ABCs and numbers (sometimes, shockingly enough, multiplication tables!) to get a head start.

Piano and violin lessons start in Kindergarten.

Kumon classes in first grade.

Spanish or Hindi language lessons begin around this time too.

None of these activities are being done because children want to be carted from one activity to another after school. Parents are under so much pressure from other parents to enroll in some or all of the above that no one stops to think about it anymore. Everything anyone does anymore is based on how it would look on a college application. But it’s peer pressure and parents are not following their own advice that they so often met out to their kids - do your own thing. Don’t let others dictate what you should or should not do.

We have always enjoyed a leisurely pace as a family even after we had children. One activity per child. Right now it’s soccer for both. They enjoy the game and have never even thought of quitting because they love the one structured thing they get to do outside of school! It is a change from their free play at the park every evening. My daughter has been playing soccer for two years now pretty much year round. She loves the game and I appreciate what she gets from it- teamwork, confidence, skills, how it feels to win and lose and also builds her stamina.

If only people would realize what a huge difference it makes if your children are young and you’re not over scheduled. They can enjoy a warm, home cooked meal without having to grab a snack on the go. If they have siblings, they get to play together. Read. This is a huge part of our household. A weekly trip to the library and they can borrow as many books as they like and spend hours reading because that’s what afternoons are for- lazing around. They get to go to the park every evening because they don’t have anywhere else to be. Outdoors, they socialize, get into trouble, run around and just be kids. It gives me time to catch up on a book or chat with a friend. Win. Win.

While we teach our children to own their uniqueness and even flaunt it, why not do the same as parents and focus on your child’s development in the present. It will be time for college applications soon enough. Who knows your child might even have the most unique application by NOT doing what everyone else did growing up.

Navigating Common Core

My daughter started school around the same time that Common Core Standards were being implemented a couple of years ago. I was relieved and felt fortunate that my kids had dodged the bullet on the No Child Left Behind fiasco. There was obviously something wrong with the way kids were being taught in schools based on the old template because they were not faring well against their peers around the world. As I understood it, a change was being made to make our children delve deeper into science and math and move away from the superficial multiple choice kind of learning.

That was first grade and now she’s coming to the end of second grade and I still feel quite happy with the way they’re being taught. There are word problems that make her think. She cannot just take two numbers and instinctively add or subtract them. She needs to read and comprehend the problem to decide what she needs to do with those numbers to arrive at the answer. I love that my child is being challenged and occasionally sheds a tear because she has to explain in words her math calculations. There is more emphasis on STEM (Science, technology, engineering and math education.) I’m not sure this has to do with common core but there is more awareness and training on STEM that seems to have coincided with the introduction of common core. There are no timed math tests that made her count on her fingers instead of using mental math strategies. There is more focus on looking at applications of math rather than just learning an algorithm and computing it blindly.

But I can tell that the curriculum will get more difficult and thought provoking as she moves to higher grades.I know this because I have attended several sessions the school has organized to get parents to understand what their children are being taught and why. But all I hear are complaints from parents struggling with their kids’ homework. In second grade. Then of course there are the fifth grade parents who are having a full on meltdown with fists pounding on the ground, legs flailing, because their child is all of a sudden thrown into this curriculum after comfortably working multiple choice problems all these years. No fair! Pout. Just go online and look up some Ted Talks for the ‘tough’ concepts and you’ll be fine, I want to tell them as I march them to a corner for continually interrupting the speaker with their whining. Then there is the ‘well informed’ activist parent who comes with a stack of ‘research’ that shows that our children are being dumbed down because of Common Core, it’s a political thing and the Democrats are out to screw us by treating our kids as guinea pigs. So yes, parents are panicking and using all sorts of tactics from whining to attacking to signing petitions. Just so their children stay in a comfort zone and don’t lose that highly protected self esteem when they cry themselves to bed over a math problem. That their parents couldn’t solve either.

This is also how I know that common core will be good for everyone. As much a learning for parents as it will be for children. Education in the US has not been challenging even for previous generations when they were taught that in a bind, choose ‘b’ as the answer to a multiple choice question. So now if you’re that parent who sits with your child to help with homework but use your fingers to quickly count out addition on your fingers under the table while asking your child to do it mentally, this is a good thing! You’ll be able to leave a restaurant without pulling out the Tip Calculator on your iphone...