Enfant Politicale

How clever is a baby? This seems like an easy question right? After all we have been fed a steady diet of childhood innocence and “blank slate” philosophies over many, many years. So much so that term like “babe in the woods” has taken on mythically idiomatic terms. Everyone knows that babies are clean hearted, sweet creatures with a pure white heart filled with goodness and love for their nurturers i.e. parents.

Umm…no.

Take it from me ladies and gentlemen, all those things about innocent babies you have heard so far is a load of bull of the freshest, stinkiest variety. There are few greater political creatures than 2-year old babies. In fact I believe that the term babies should not even be applied to them any more after the first three months. The moment they are able to focus their eyes, they start manipulating the person making the silliest goo-goo noises at them from a few feet above their angelic faces.

My own daughter is an excellent case in point. Very sweet, very kind, very nice to me – when she wants that piece of chocolate from my hand. The moment she has emotionally blackmailed me into giving her that piece of worthless food, she is all business again. Which in her case nowadays usually means beating me up with her toy plastic sword – her latest sadistic hobby.

But that’s not all. She has a radar built into her brain that immediately picks up which of her parents is in a mellower mood at any point in time. And then she will attack that weakness mercilessly. A typical conversation with one of us (in this case, me) goes like this:

Teesta: Papa…want chips

Me: Not now baby. I am busy…working.

Teesta: Papaaaa…want chips!

Me (angry now): I said NO! No chips at 10 in the morning!

Teesta (playing her trump card): Momaaaaaaaa! Mommmaaaa!

Wife (comes running): What have you been doing to her, you brute?

Me (spluttering): Me? Me? Forgive me for trying to look to her health. She wants chips now!

Teesta (big teardrops in her eyes): Papa not nice.

Wife: C’mon baby. Papa is bad. I’ll give you chips. Making your own little baby cry…hmph!

And as I watch in horrified fascination, Teesta gives me a triumphant smile as she goes away with her current political ally. And I think to myself, this cannot be my child.

I was pretty miffed I admit, but the problem with children, especially your own, is that it is impossible to be angry with them for long. After all they are really rather sweet. And I have to admit, that they are rather indiscriminate in their politics. Sort of like a smaller, cuter, Amar Singh. They will align with whoever can fulfill their immediate need for a sweet, or a playground visit, be it the father or the mother. And they are pretty open about it. No subterfuge. No holier-than-thou attitude. They are essentially telling you – Dude, this is the way it is. You really have no choice but to love me unconditionally. No alternatives.

I have also realized that at some level we adults actually like being manipulated this way. It make us feel special, needed, loved by our children. I got proof of that this Sunday when my daughter wanted to go and play in the rain. My wife wouldn’t allow her of course, but I decided to sneak her out. Both of us got gloriously wet in the driving rain, jumping and horsing around.

And Teesta’s verdict – “Papa good. Momma not nice.”

Ah…sweet sweet music to my ears!

 

*A version of this article was published in eSakal recently.

A Father’s Tough Life

I really fail to understand why women seem to think that being a parent is so difficult. I mean if you hear them speak about it, you would think that they are doing some sort of superhuman task, toiling their way through a life in some Sisyphean endeavour.

Take my wife, for example. She keeps cribbing all the time – how she doesn’t get to go out, how she has to work and take care of our daughter, Teesta, how she doesn’t get enough sleep, blah blah – till I am forced to tune her voice out of my head and bury myself deeper in the magazine I am reading. And then she blames me for not doing enough to take care of Teesta! That charge is so blatantly false, that I do not even dignify the libel with an answer. I just ignore her and haughtily change the channel on TV.

I mean look at all the things I do to help raise our kid. I wake her up every morning and play with her for at least 5 minutes before her mother forcibly takes her away for her bath. Then I read my newspaper diligently, while sipping my tea, right in front of Teesta so that she absorbs the excellent habit of reading from me. Her mother seems more interested in dressing her for her playschool! These women and their penchant for dressing…

And then Teesta goes to school while we both go to work. In the evening, my wife comes back earlier than I. (I suspect she does not have enough work at office, while I toil hours away in mentally draining work for the family and Teesta’s future.) She then takes Teesta away to a park and makes her run! Poor kid. Exposure to all that dirt and germs can do her no good at all. And what about those dangers like swings and slides? Ideologically I refuse to accompany them on these dangerous trips.

See, I want my daughter to be a practical, prepared person of the world. I want her to watch educational TV programmes like CSI and Bones. Watching those autopsies and bloody, disarticulated bodies will surely draw her to science and forensics. How cool would that be? But the wife just refuses let us watch those programs! Instead she makes her watch boring channels like Animal Planet or educational DVDs! I mean how many times can you watch a frog leaping? Or repeating “Twinkle, twinkle little star…?” Surprisingly Teesta seems to like it. I am worried she really is getting brainwashed into being a sissy.

My wife just doesn’t understand my philosophy. For her, “work” has to be overt and physical. I have to demonstrate work by playing with Teesta and keeping her busy while she cooks dinner. Just sitting and making her watch film songs won’t do. I even do my bit to put her to sleep. I do that by a simple and ingenious method that consists of telling her many times to go sleep. Believe me - this needs a lot of patience.

Again wifey has other ideas. Refusing to understand my scientific methodology (again), my grumbling wife takes her to the bedroom and sings her to sleep.

By this time I am exhausted at the end of another tiring day looking after our daughter.

In all modesty, I have to say that my wife is really lucky to have a husband like me who is ready to take a lion’s share of the extremely thankless job of raising a child.

Someday she will understand…

 

*A version of this post was published in eSakal recently.