What Is “peer Pressure” ?

For desi kids peer pressure is by reverse osmosis. Meaning -- mom talking with other desi moms and exchanging notes, then giving the reluctant-audience dad the gist of the notes, and bugging kids over the weekend to do what the other desi kids are doing after school.

One of the best gifts I ever gave my kids was to stop talking with the hyper-competitive desi moms.

Anika, you usually come up with such topics on late Sunday evening. This time by Wednesday itself?

 

Your are mixing up things, Anika, by linking soft spoken and peer pressure. Like putting chicken chettinad in Gujarati thaali.

Soft-spoken people are not extra susceptible to peer pressure. In fact, the strongest peer pressure that can devolve the other mom's mind into a sedimentary rock, is exerted by the quiet mom or kid who softly say, "qualified for district spelling bee" or "am skipping math kangaroo, going straight to mathcounts competition".

Competition just like in India. Whose kid is in accelerated math group in class. Whose kid is reading books at a higher Lexile level. Which mom knows what is Lexile level. When did that mom learn what is Lexile level. Whose kid got the more academic teacher. Whose teacher is going on maternity leave and lousy substitute will teach rest of the year. Whose kid is writing in cursive already. Whose kid got the honor of reciting the pledge of allegiance over the school PA system from the principal's office (which means kid got sent to the principal's office but for a nice thing. )

How other child does in school matters to you or it does not. If it does not, your husband hit the lottery without buying a lottery ticket. : ) : ) Meaning you will never dump on him all your worries (on late Friday or Sunday evenings) about how your child is getting left behind and other dads are doing so much of science fair, olympiad coaching, robotics team coordinating.

In short -- the other kids and their achievements are always in your rear view mirror. That is the competition. Such vision in rear view mirror is part of the desi mom's job description. If any of them tell you otherwise, I have a bridge for sale.

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Anika, you are such a good sport. In any thread, even in hottest threads, you never take offense at any post. You simply click Like or not and move on. True duck back for life's "rain that must fall."