Do you feel "yeah i can relate to this"???

Shanvy · Jul 29, 2013

This was an article in the businessline, to highlight kid friendly shopping and kid friendly tourism(I assume)..but wait, do you feel the article exaggerates or underplays...

We at IL are a diversified sampling with part time working moms, stay at homes moms and working moms..

Parenting has undergone a dramatic change in the recent times. Parents are laying more emphasis on their child’s overall personality development instead of just focusing on academics, according to a study.

The parents of the ’80s and early ’90s had a dearth of choices when it came to spending on their kids. However, with rising prosperity, the modern “money-rich, time-poor and guilt-ridden” Indian parents in metros are compensating their love with expensive gifts and keeping their children engaged with summer camps, foreign language classes, theatres, canvas painting and other enhanced learning courses.

Online marketplace for kids mycity4kids.com along with media buying agency Starcom Media Group in a study conducted across Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida, Indirapuram (Ghaziabad), Mumbai and Chennai said that rising trend of working parents has led to parents spending less time for their kids but having more money to spend on them. Children are going to daycare/playschool at an increasingly early age, it added.

According to the study, parents have become more obsessive about their children and at the same time have also become more hands-off, delegating key tasks to maids, grand-parents, tutors, school and other institutions and demanding greater accountability from them.

RISING EXPECTATIONS

Since children have access to many resources, parents’ expectation of them to perform at the highest level has also gone up. The role of the disciplinarian in the house has transitioned from the father to mother.

Parents want to make sure that they’re around to share special moments with their children. This is reflected in the extensive research for ‘kid-friendly’ holiday destinations, making time for the Parent–Teacher Meetings and children’s performances in school/outside. This coupled with the increase in the number and range of activities has meant that children have access to multiple opportunities in terms of both the range of activities available and the number of activities that a kid goes to, on an average.

CHALLENGE FOR PARENTS

Kids are exposed to technology at an earlier age than ever before with gadgets that make the experience more enticing and engaging. The challenge is for parents to decide how much is too much and what is good and what isn’t. With working couples, there is a movement towards having a strong support system in the vicinity consisting of grand-parents and maids.

Unlike earlier, parents almost dread the holidays as they are at their wit’s end on how to keep the kids busy, the study found. The same is also true of post school hours. Parents would rather have their kids participate in a supervised activity rather than have time to themselve
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Is guilt the only major player or is our parental expectations or peer pressure??

hridhaya · Jul 29, 2013

The article has clearly captured the current parenting trend in the society. I feel that these have become one of the necessities or conveniences in current life. Reasons are different for everybody. Availability of money does make the choices attractive even if they are not needed. Where does one line draw the line? To each his own.

Srama · Jul 29, 2013

Dear Shanthi,

I read this as soon as you posted. It made an interesting read. This guilt parenting, all of us tend to do at one time or the other. As kids grow what I am learning is it has to be a conscious full time job whether we are working or staying at home. Compensating seems okay but how can we loose track of long term effects on the children who are the future? At the same we also need to have a lid on the expectations that we set for our children, not because we don'tthnk enough of them bu because we understand the innovation that is happening around us and it is as such hard for kids to cope with the peer pressure. So it would be in their best interest to allow them to feel bored. It certainly is getting harder for parents and as adults we certainly have to learn to ground ourselves better so that we can help our kids use their potential.

I know I just parrotted but to your question if i can relate to this, I do sometimes but then even though I work, I consider myself more of a stay at home mom. So I still have the flexibility of not compensating with material things!

Dinny · Jul 29, 2013

Shanvy
Yes i can relate to it.....dont know if i am one of the guilty parents.

Rakhii · Jul 29, 2013

Shanvy, I must say, I can relate to it a little bit but not too much. Even though the article is true to an extent, I think its trying to capture bits and pieces of several house holds put together and not just a situation in one household.

Yes, these days kids are going to daycare much earlier than before. That's because these days most of the women choose to work since the time they graduate. If we do not have a support system where parents/inlaws are around, they have no choice but to leave them at day care. This is true to an extent but not always true. I mean, we always have choices. We make our choices. If we want, we will find a way to stay at home.
Having said this, its OK to choose to work fulltime too. Half the time, normally, what goes in our mind is that if we both work, we can give a better future to our child. maybe true or maybe not...

Now, I am rambling am I not?

The point I am trying to make, if parents who work splurge on gadgets alone to children, then, they have no right to complain tomorrow that their kids are quite addicted to them. Balance is the key.

As for the guilty part, working and non-working mom's both feel it. Working mom's for not being able to spend enough time with them, non-working for not being able to afford everything which they would have if they were working. No mom is guilt free...sad fact.

I constantly see mom's feeling "If i had left her/him at the daycare, perhaps he would be more social"...as consonantly as I see "How I miss him/her; I wish I were home!"

Over all, I feel like this is another one such article which bashes parents for leaving kids at daycare/after school etc...carefully written with sugar coated, politically correct sentences.

To answer your question again Shanvy, yes, I can relate to it to an extent.

prana · Aug 3, 2013

All the three you mentioned Mam..I suppose..
sometimes I feel very happy that I quit job for sake of my kids...but I accept, the ambitious girl in me shows her face at some point of time and makes me feel worried..but when I compare to the former happiness, the later worry is nothing.....

what to do...this fast fast world, make us all running, running behind something, all the time....

ramyaramani · Aug 4, 2013

I can relate to a small extent. I have taken a break from work in order to invest in my DD's childhood. Right now I have zero expectations from DD as she is too small to understand the competitive world. All I want her to do is eat, sleep, play and have fun.

Children are going to play school early. This is us (parents) bowing to societal pressure. We want our children to face the competitive world. Expectations have also increased because we live in a competitive world.

Parents have always looked for places to go where kids would enjoy. Earlier the focus was on domestic travel. Now it is changing to international travel. When I was a kid, even my parents used to wonder about ways to keep me busy during summer holidays. Only thing in the earlier days, the number of working moms were less when compared to now.

This article definitely reflects the current trend. But there are areas here it does exaggerate issues that existed even in the not-so-technology-oriented era.