So the Brat has recently got hooked on BeyBlades. Now while I am strict about his television habits and don’t allow him to watch Ben 10 etc, I figured if he’s found a way to connect with the apartment complex kids, why not? Some of you might remember the initial trouble he had finding friends. At times I’d stop and wonder if I am raising the kids so differently that they are turning into misfits. No idea of popular culture, being bullied and so on. But over a period of time I realised that the Brat’s inherent goodness draws other children to him. And when he brought up the Bey Blade I caved. He’d been gifted a couple some months ago and hadn’t bothered with them so they lay packaged in his cupboard. He took to it like a fish to water and he has been one of the crowd, spinning Beyblades, having matches in a little plate called the stadium and so on.
It made me happy to see him fit in. And at another level it made me sad to think that my little boy with his own special interests was getting lost in this whole Ben 10-BeyBlade nonsense. Just aggression and competition. All of which are things we actively discourage. Is this what his life would be? Hiding away his own little quirks to fit in with whatever the average kid was doing, no matter how pointless? Which is not to say that everything must have a point, after all they are only kids playing. But I was so happy to have him develop his own individual interest instead of blindly following the crowd, getting caught up in mass hysteria. Made me wonder if one must always sacrifice individuality to be part of a group. Does it have to be all or nothing? Can he not be a part of the crowd while retaining that sense of wonder and the creativity that makes him the person he is? Will real friends ask that he change himself to hang out with them? Are these questions coming too early? Why is the OA nodding his head? What am I going to do about my story deadline? What do I make for dinner? STOP!
And then one day I found him doing this. He’s taken the Beyblade launcher and the rod that launches and twisted and turned them into a dinosaur. Look mama, says he.. I made this into a Brachiasaurus (or something, don’t ask me). Made my heart leap that he isn’t over his own personal dinosaur craze and only into mass interests and popular culture. And also broke my heart a little. How early our kids learn to hide their personal interests to look like they fit in. And then at moments like these, his old self peeks out from behind the sweaty little increasingly popular boy on the playground, and the nervous mother in me smiles and heaves a sigh of relief. My little Brat lives on.
The Mad Momma 
That last paragraph just had me go Awww…
thats just fantastic! i think its lovely to encourage and nurture their individual strengths and passions and the little people they are in their heart of hearts, but its also good to let them taste the junta around, popular culture. in my experience, having had a taste of both, i have found that all through life, this gave me the grounding to choose for myself, what i saw fit. and in most cases i think my sister and i have chosen well (if i may say so myself) 😛
I agree – kids need a mix of both. and you can never protect kids from popular culture no matter how much you disapprove of it. personally i hate the thought of my daughter playing with barbies. but they will imbibe it from their environment anyway. the best i can do is not actively encourage it at home, even if i dont go out of my way to keep it out of my house
Let them do what they want to.. even if they are doing it coz of peer pressure… I got lucky.. after my rehab, when I came back.. there was no poster of Justin-MF-Bieber on the wall!!
Luv the snap…He’s growing up so fast…I vividly remember the snap where he was having a gala time in front of the AC vent, being held up by two strong arms… Blessings!
oh my God! I’d forgotten that. And they are all lost in the last computer crash
*bawls*
There…there…think about it, its stored in the right place… our memories 🙂
babe, you need an extra external hard drive which automatically backs everything up. I also lost a ton of pictures of A, cried and for days and have erred on the side of paranoia since.
And hey – the socialization is important too – am so glad for the Brat! Now they have him on beyblades – soon he will be introducing them to dinosaurs;-) Just you wait!
oh I do have one now. and i still dont remember to back up stuff. i deserve this sort of stuff to happen to me 😦
your posts always make me think… with a growing son and my aversion to Ben 10 and the said beyblade, these are things that i have been pondering. I do not want him lost in the digital world or the beyblade world. I want him to go out and play real sports, as opposed to sitting in front of a screen and pressing buttons… easy said than done i think in this world 😦
“Made me wonder if one must always sacrifice individuality to be part of a group. Does it have to be all or nothing” – this is kind of a scary thought!!
Anyway, am glad the dreamer lives on.
p.s. i really need to check this beyblades business out. All u mommy bloggers mention thsi.
its the pits. please ignore it. waste of money and time. you have to keep buying more and more of them to make up a set. big bloody con
and I thought beyblades got out of fashion years ago, before I had the kiddo ! there still popular !
the little boy in my house has no tv to watch, in his early years he used to gape tv sets with an open mouth when we visited our friends etc. now I notice that if the children are making a noise playing and running he does not look at their sets, but I let him watch some good DVDs and youtube on once a day and he’s happy. I feel I should direct him but at least give him choice later on.
On a different note just read the snippet on Anna Hazare’s fast against corruption, some readers commented now that we are done with the WC can we support Hazare at jantar mantar made me 🙂
how sweet 🙂 🙂
your brat is a sweetheart!
if he really loves something, he’d figure out a way to hold on to it, trust me 🙂
it’s a tightrope walk raising kids nowadays, innit! (speaks the sage still-in-university-girl whose one experience in child rearing is spoiling her niece rotten :P)
It’s a top by another name. And it brought me out of my century into his. I tried playing it with him – it is fun. And my little boy ends up educating me, again and again on what works and what does not. Any connection is good! 😀
It is a top but it requires no skill. When we were kids and used tops, you had to have a knack to twirling it else it fell down. now with launchers and what not, even the bean can do it with minimal effort. it seems like they are taking all traditional toys and remaking them to come back as completely useless bits of plastic.
to say nothing of the fact that you now have to collect each one with its fancy name. apparently just one is not enough!
It does require skill and accuracy to get ahead when there is more than one person and more than one bey.
The fact is that one can bend a bit and bring this in without going the whole hog. I didn’t get my son his beyblades for a long time and there’s a post with pictures of all the things he made spin, including an eraser with a pencil tip stuffed in, half a TT ball and a ton of other things. Creativity? Only when he wants something so much!
It’s been a lesson to me to also let go. Everything does not have to have a skill/education/self-improvement component. And there’s something charming about sitting together and arguing the merits of a metal fusion one versus a flat tip, yelling when it goes into ‘balance’ mode.
We cut screen time (one hour a week and most weeks they forget to even claim that), there are no computer games/video games, my kids do not touch our telephone and are not into a lot of the mainstream stuff that other kids are. Misfit is fun when you are older and trying hard to stand out, not at this age when they need some thing, anything to not be totally out there.
Have you seen the Kreeda toys? They are traditional toys with better finish and these brats like those too. There’s not enough plastic in them, so I doubt they will ever get mainstream! 😀 Walking a different path then does involve more parental participation, there’s no way around that. Then we stand to get on the wrong side of the ‘free play’ brigade. Ah well, what’s a parent to do! 😀
Actually misfit is never fun! Being who you are without having to give up what you like doing, is fun at all ages I suppose. I have seen some Kreeda toys but they aren’t easily available in Delhi. And yes, whats a parent to do? 🙂
yup. i think the harder you try to keep popular culture out more desperate the kids will get. Cub has been asking me for ban-tan watch and bayblade. i told him when he can say it correctly i will buy it for him! hehe!
love the dino! and the dino maker! 🙂
cheers!
I don’t know if I agree with that Abha… so many people have done it with a large degree of success. Its not that I am against popular culture. More that i pick and choose what I find suitable. the kids are finally allowed to have some hours of screen time, but its carefully chosen cartoons. no cartoon channel endlessly bombarding them with advertising.
I hear you, hon. It’s really tough to strike a balance between what’s out there (the socilaisation and pressure to fit in), and the individuality of the child.
It’s not just interests. Say nail polish. Dhruv wants it when his sister applies it. Same for mehendi. I don’t say no. Just make sure it’s on his toes, they get covered up somewhat. But when he’s wearing sandals, or running barefoot, on in his dance class, he gets the ‘it’s only for girls, are you a girl?’ comment. But amazingly, he’s not stopped asking for it or demanded the remover and cotton. I seriously don’t know when I’m going to hard-heartedly say ‘No, don’t appply it’…it’ll break my heart. Why is the world so tough on boys? 😦
On the nailpolish comment, not out for parenting advice or anything, and I have a little girl, so things are easier, but instead of a flat out “no” later, an alternative may be to explain the consequences to his choice without forbidding him e.g. some people think nail polish is only for girls. That way he can figure out that it is a belief, that he can question it and that you might support it and other non-conventional thoughts he may have?
n!
@n! Thanks for the suggestion, it makes sense.
You know, this lil’ fella wants the nailpolish so eagerly, all caught up in that moment with the smell and the colour and the coldness of the nailpolish…and he loves seeing his little toes. He himself comes to me later, telling me someone told him its only for girls, but you know, he didn’t look too bothered or demand to have it taken off. Maybe he’s learning to take it in his stride? We did talk about how dancers decorate their hands with mehendi/alta, both male and female, when he wants hand mehendi like his sister occasionally applies.
And if he wants it removed or does not want it, I honour that too!
it is. and only the sensitive notice that. i have also realised that our boys are the gentler ones. what does one do?
A friend was telling me I could figure out another way to help my son express his feminine side…now I have to go ask her what she means. 🙂
*socialisation
*socialization
we got it the first time 😉
😳
I’m feelin like ur gonna have a very tough time..when ur kids are grown up and ready to leave home ….ur one smitten mommy !! 🙂
Beyblades and ben10..hvn’t heard of either!
🙂 all mommies are smitten mommies. Those who aren’t smitten by their own kids shouldnt bother to be parents 🙂
And you’re right … kids leaving home is heartbreaking. I can imagine what all our parents went through when we left home even though we were raring to get out and get a taste of the world.
MM,
as long as popular culture remains one thing he is interested in, I don’t see it as an issue. Most of us have various filters in our lives – and there isn’t really a timeline (IMO) for someone to learn different behaviours for different areas of life.
That said, I don’t deny that children in India who have non-mainstream interests seem to increasingly be sidelined – which is very sad. (actually not just children – mainstream seems the ONLY way for everyone in India)
M
hey its actually the exactly opposite! a lot more non-mainstream folks are now able to connect thanks in part to the internet and its children.
Chox, yes internet connections seem to be way up – but does that help kids as much? Enough that mainstream doesn’t matter?
I don’t have enough data to compare – only observations from my vacations there, and comments from friends who have moved back…
Not for kids – more for adults.
For instance, I am in touch with a lot of non-mainstream type of folks in bangalore thanks to Blogsville. Without the net I’d never have known of their existence even.
Another example is home-schooling – I know of a fairly active bunch of folks who do it in this city – all of whom could not have connected without the net. At least not as easily as they do now – and it benefits their children directly and indirectly.
On a tangent, I do not see much difference between India and outside any more. There are issues here and they are there everywhere. Similarly the good things abroad are here too mostly. India is a different beast in a few ways still – but hey we all know that!
One thing is for sure, more than ever, India does not need folks who return, it is the other way totally.
MM, thanks for the space and M – as always, nice to debate with you!
my two cents – M, there are a lot of non-mainstream families and we’re connecting. for example – chox and me. we have different beliefs and I am glad to have found her. there are a lot of alternative schools too. But, and this is a BIG BUT – the mainstream is becoming more overpowering. Twenty years ago it was easier to live within your community (I use that term loosely) and today you cannot. You ARE bombarded with stuff you don’t want (eg, the whole cricket hoopla)and so naturally its harder to keep yourself detached from it.
so while i can make sure my kids meet kids of parents with similar mindsets, i cannot fight what the external world is bombarding us with in so many ways.
but MM, the external world was alwats there right?
don’t think the world is necessarily becoming more intolerant of folks different from themselves – its just that it is easier to be heard no matter what opinion you have, and that works both ways, no?
Yes it was.. but people lived more in their cocoons. you hung out with your community, down your small street. at least that was my experience of growing up.
Popular culture didnt invade your life through TVs, radios, hoardings, internet etc. Also, more parents spent time at home with their kids. Our dads came home from work at 5. there was less of a going out and eating out culture. today we work later hours, our kids spend more time with their peers than we did, everywhere you look there is an advertisement, schools bags have batman and ben 10 on them. in our childhood we had ugly duckback bags and eagle bottles if we were well off.
today even if i dont tell my kid about barbies, all the kids bring barbie bags to school. what is one to do?
MM, yes, what you said about mainstream becoming more mainstream – that is the impression I get, most of the time. A lot more “OUR-way-or-the-Highway” attitude from folks too…I agree about meeting like-minded friends – but on a daily basis? My kids like to play outside most days (weather and work permitting) – that is when, IME, the lack of acceptance of mainstream choices shows up the most – and kids choosing to play a game that will get them accepted into the local crowd, as long as the game itself isn’t harmful to them, is fine, IMO.
Chox, B’lore always *Was* a wonderful place! 🙂 Glad to see it maintains some of its maverick nature…
BTW, Re: Homeschooling – need to contact you then. Have friends who are in despair now – recently moved back and HATE all their choices of schooling for their elementary aged kids.
And I don’t say that India needs its returnees – people return for a variety of reasons after all.
BTW, on a tangential note – my father subverted the lure of beyblades here! We have a set of old fashioned tops (the kinds with nails) and he put on a show of old-fashioned top-spinning skill, lifting the spinning top, getting it to spin on his palm, doing an “appit” (no translation, sorry!) – with the result that the BB looked dull in comparison 🙂 Husband and I still retain some of those skills, so are attempting to teach the kids – I never realised it was so hard – don’t recall learning how to set a top spinning!
i never could spin a top. not one of my top regrets, but i feel rather silly now. i mean how can you not know how to spin a top well?!
my mom is a stud at spinning tops (the old types) – she beat all her jamaai-babus at it!
M – do contact me. anything to get you to do that! and yes bangalore rocks, as always.
MM dear! Don’t worry!! Brat will be brat. I wanted to comment on the last two posts – never got around to – got lost reading the million comments in your posts. Cricket post was really good – and I agree with most of it. I hate it that unless you showed that kind of mad excitement people look at you like – what’s wrong with you. It is like you needed to have seen the match to belong to the Indian community. I did see it but I felt embarrassed almost to have to flaunt it or people were like – match pakle? Dammit – I have to finish cooking too – since the minute the match got over we had to rush to take the kids roller skating before the closed.
Anyway – back to this post – I too feel the same way about Ben 10/Star wars – KB does not know bay blede yet for some reason – but I have come to realize it is all a phase. Their natural inclinations always remain. It is a huge waste of their precious learning years I feel. But for example KB made his own Ben 10 book – some 20 pages of illustration and writing with a title page and what not. And he thinks about what alien he should become to suit every situation – say if he has to cross a puddle and what not. What I am saying is – Brat and KB are so alike – even as I write this – my husband is reading a dinosaur encylopedia to him as KB is eating his breakfast. Those interests don’t ever go away. Funny how alike our thoughts are in some of these…even for KG – I still have not bought her a single Barbie doll. And KG talks of princesses in the context of wearing those skirts – but she does not have any of those books other than the classic fairy tales like sleeping beauty. So far she is so influenced by KB who tells her “What do princesses do? They don’t defeat any bad guys. They just twirl around and dance all the time”. 🙂 Ask her about dinosaurs or Ben 10 or Calvin and Hobbes – she will tell you a lot about it – KB reads those, so KG also loves those…but am sure the more she spends time with her female friends she will also show more interest in girly stuff. She still likes to play pretend house etc…
So they will just get into the group dynamics but am sure they will retain their own interests. But the time wastage – I don’t know what to do about that…I too don’t like that feeling.
he mad his own book???!!! Noonie, you must be so proud of him. I am 🙂
I think the Brat’s at a great place, where he is discovering the fun of mass interests he can share with other kids his age, and at the same time, continue to retain his own individual interest. How he balances both will be a challenge as he grows older. But with you and the OA (and Beanie darling, of course) to support him and guide him in the right direction, I feel he’s going to be alright.
have said this a million times and saying it again – you are me 5 years back. just saner and with a blog!
more follows in mail.
will await the mail 🙂
MM – don’t worry too much about it. I think their minds are elastic enough to accommocate a whole range of activities and just because he likes beyblades and finds it makes a bridge with other apartment kids doesn’t mean he can’t and won’t continue liking dinosaurs or any other special interests, or that he’s necessarily feigning an interest in beyblades just to make friends. I went through the same agonizing when chubbocks was younger and misfitting :)In so many ways, I find that brat and chubbocks are alike, BTW, including their love of the fearsome lizards!
lets do dinner soon. we shall get mala and K over too and let the kids all play with their fearsome lizards. cant tell you how grateful i am to the net for finding me likeminded people.
Am I the only one spotting a sea horse there? 😛
no no.. even i thought it looked sea-horse-ish
Sigh. You mean I now have to worry about my kid being a misfit while I still haven’t solved my own being-a-misfit issues?
all little kids find their way…it is not for us grown ups to jugde what is better. it is not superior to like something no one else does, nor inferior to like something everyone else does.
as the mom of a kid who also loves dinosaurs and beyblades and ben10s – i know its not about aggression or competition. its only about enjoying, playing and sharing.
I’m going to disagree.. I’ve watched the cartoons that the toys are based on and I do find them too aggressive for my liking and for what I want to teach my children. If you find them suitable for your child, thats not something I’m going to debate with you.
It’s not a question of superior/inferior or judging – I love how that word is tossed around freely these days! But as parents all of us make choices about what we want our kids to learn or not. What we approve of them saying/doing and what we don’t. These toys and the marketing strategies don’t meet my approval.
Of course this doesn’t mean I can do much about it because he will pick it up from other kids. But I definitely express my disapproval just as I disapprove of guns and approve of basketball and football. I’m sure you’re doing what you think is right for your child… just as I am doing what i think fits my set of beliefs.
The point of the post was not just that I dislike violent toys and slick marketing, but also that I hate the way children are forced to lose their individuality in play. For months my son went down with dinosaurs and no one played. The moment he got a beyblade, he was in on the clique. sad state of affairs.
Come over and let the kids have a dinosaur playdate 🙂
Umm… Tuesday? Kids are driving us bonkers that they want to see yours. Can take them someplace. National Science Museum? Let me check the timings and get back to you.
heard very good things about the science museum in delhi – been revamped big time apparently. go and tell us MM. will do it on next delhi trip.
you must. its got some amazing dinos.
baby’s been fairly unwell 😦 coughing and wheezing and randomly spiking high fever. So not too sure about Tues, maybe the weekend ? Will call.
Vijesh has a beyblade. *moans*
there, there, all little boys need their toys. *ahem* apparently you aren’t proving entertainment enough :p
tell me if there’s a russian circus somewhere close by. I’ll learn it from them 😐
LOL!!!
Hey darling, you are a card holding misfit and proudly declare it. Dhutkaar diya to darna kya? I am talking about ‘no watching world cup’ – ‘no listening to Beatles’ ( never say it out loud in front of me, my very besura sweetheart wooed me by singing ‘Fool on the Hill’ anytime, anywhere. i married him)Pyar kiya to TMM se darna kya?
Your little boy will not lose himself, he will flash his ‘proud to be a misfit’ card when his sense of self is fully formed.
Using another popular culture reference, say ‘aal is well’. The other kids will learn to see creatures in their beyblades thanks to the dino loving boy of yours and will ask their parents for their own misfit cards.
🙂 you’re such a sweetheart.
TMM – my child cannot speak yet but I already have the sense I am raising a misfit. Where her cousins and peers are busy watching videos on Iphones/Ipods, facetiming with grandparents daily (we skype once a week as a treat but shudder at the thought of facetime)and watching cartoons on TV, we allow her to toy with an old cell phone, she gets to see the laptop around only because we can’t live our lives without it and we have NOT shown her a single video on the web other than Lakdi ki Kaathi – which she’s so used to my besura singing that she won’t watch the video because it’s not what she’s used to!
So I take heart in this post to see, that babies will find their own equilibrium and find ways to fit in as much or as little as they want.
On a tangent though — I feel like kids these days are exposed to SO much technology at such an early age that I fear we’re raising a generation that will be bored of their minds by the time they are 10 (if not sooner…)I don’t know why so many parents give-in to showing videos at mealtimes, heck I don’t remember watching TV until I was at least 8 or so and never at meal times!
As a techie, I had to respond to a part of this comment! This comment is not meant to be taken personally by Gayatri (whom I don’t know) – but is a general statement…ok CYA out of the way…
Why the issue with various forms of video chat? VOIP is one of the great technological breakthroughs in this century, IMO. Facetime’s sourcecode is obviously not public, but the video quality is way better than that of Skype or Google voice.
I am thrilled my kids have the option of “seeing” their grandparents while they talk to them – and so often children aren’t really in a mood to talk – but with these forms of video chat, at least the g’parents and other relatives who live far away get to be a part of our lives in ways they couldn’t be, earlier. My extended family is scattered over many continents as many Indians’ tend to be nowadays….I attribute my children having the relationship they do with their cousins solely to their ability to have a relationship over phone and video.
Unless I misunderstood the comment, and the angst is over the children being able to use Facetime on their own – to that, all I can say is that every generation is more tech-savvy than the previous. No one ever taught my children how to use most gadgets, yet within a few minutes of getting one in their hands they’re able to figure things out.
I will agree that children being entertained solely by videos is a bad thing (but they are absolute lifesavers on long car rides with car-sick/claustrophobic kids, and no scenery to speak of!)
Hey! Brat’s going to be a ‘rockstar’ – and that’s as popular as they get 🙂 Don’t worry – I think his fascination for dinos will outlast the beyblade.
OTOH, I get pressure from MY peers on my parenting and tv restrictions! One has gone as far as telling me that my kids will need therapy while they are in college. Of course, I retorted that “Heck, at least they will get to college which is more than I can say for…” 🙂
My snarky best!
This topic is so close to my heart…and I have already had some memorable arguments with the complex ladies. So far in all the playdates and misc meetings in the corridoors of our building, women have walked up to me and told me that I shouldnt let Yohaan play with 1.dolls 2. kithcen sets 3. my scarves and duppattas. Now the deal is that Yohaan is currently obessesed with 1.changing diapers of all his biggish dolls and stuffed toys. 2.cooking cooking cooking (calls it ‘tookery’) and 3. dressing up just like mamma in scarves and duppattas.
Imagine my annoyance, being told then your son will become 1.pansy 2. gay 3.girly 4. is so silly 5. a chef (as if that’s a bad thing)6. he will develop ‘tendencies’ 7. he will be friends only with girls,dont let him do all that..so on and so forth. It truly truly breaks my heart. I just ignore them and never respond but my point is, my child could become whatever in the future, I would still adore him. I am a big believer in words having power over our lives and circumstances and it upsets me to have people indulge in loose talk esp about children. We must build up lives not bring them down with our words. So seemingly harmless statements like ‘watch it, your son will become a gay-fashion desginer’ because of his fondness for scarves or ‘your girl is such a tom boy, make her grow her hair’, are plain foolish. The issue is not whther my child will become homosexual for playing with dolls, I am offended that so many so called educated mothers behave like this, talk like this and label a child/parent so easily.
Personaly, I really feel that children like the brat need to be encouraged to develop a healthy sense of self. It is perfectly ok to be different, as long as we are not being abusive to ourselves, family friends and society around us. I dont care about others but I am going to continue cheering such children including my son every time he pretends he has cooked something for mamma and serves it with so much enthusiasm. and mummy must clap and make lots of yumm noises too! 🙂
cheers
h
After Jurassic Park, I’m afraid, dinosaurs are very much a part of pop culture. My kindergarteners (four boys) are crazy about dinosaurs. I took them on a field trip to the natural history museum and they loved it immensely.
🙂 Probably. Except that my kids aren’t really allowed anything other than a few cartoons and have never seen Jurassic Park. The natural history museum huh? what fun for them.
yesterday evening i took anna down to the garden in my apartment. she’s refusing the stroller for some reason so it’s the garden for now. i realized i don’t know ANYBODY. gulp. i know i’m antisocial but what if nobody plays with my baby because of that. what if she becomes a serial killer coz her mom doesn’t know how to talk to people she doesn’t know so ends up knowing nobody so doesn’t talk to anyone and so nobody plays with her – anna not her mom. BOO HOO.
He is grew… legs, arms and neck are long. “Lambu” nickname ho payega.
you’re right. he is grew quite a bit 🙂
on an entirely different note:
wanted: a post on this entire anna hazare issue.:D
not right now. can’t deal with anymore regular seemingly-normal readers getting hysterical and abusive. got too much on my hands. its funny how people can’t disagree without getting foul mouthed
Common MM , am sure u talking aby a minority here and that also when u choose to publish and respond without taking the easier way to ignore 🙂
sigh, well yes, they are a minority, but it doesn’t make it any more fun to deal with. You should try it for a day – you’ll pull your hair out in clumps! people start off in a civil way and I respond in a civil way. only to have them end up frothing at the mouth because of something someone else said somewhere.
Seriously man, I have a life and it involves a lot more than arguing endlessly with absolutely juvenile people who will end on a “lets agree to disagree note.” At one time I could argue endlessly, but now with kids, work, home, no househelp, I honestly don’t have the time or the inclination. Particularly when they don’t have a point but just want to blather on and find other commenters here to get personal with. Heck, take your personal fights to the concerned person’s inbox and out of my face/space. This isn’t rediff.com.
phew. very tiring. I do have lots to say about Anna Hazare that could have been said on the cricket post too, but I didnt want to mix topics. I might do it someday when I have time and patience 😉
how have you been?
Nice post.
We just went through a similar process with our two girls here in Australia.
They were with friends who are obsessed with their DS. The big thing was the Fashion Shop which allowed you to set up your shop, choose clothes, deal with customers, make sales and have a whole virtual shop.
It is obviously very clever, but we then pointed out that they could do the same thing together with their dolls!!! We picked out the barbies and piled up their clothes. We then set them up and began the REAL LIFE interaction of selling clothes and choosing them together- without having our noses stuck in a ‘computer’.
I say- “Go, real world!!!”
Please drop past our family friendly blog when you have a moment too!
http://beourbest.blogspot.com/
competition and aggressiveness are what make us fit for survival, darling. look at the way population is growing. and please let us not forget our own competitive nature. we don’t work in other peoples homes, we work in offices, we exploit the weaker sections, make no bones about it, our kids are learning all this from us as well as from their genes…
i tried to keep my boy away from pistols, but as soon as he saw a real rifle at a friend’s place, he just couldn’t keep his hands off it.
like khalil gibran says, ‘try not to make them like you, for they live in the morrow, which you cannot visit, even in your dreams…’
I disagree grasshopper. while they might make us fit for survival, a lot of us have the option of not rearing our kids to simply focus on aggression and competition. those will emerge in times of need. I personally don’t believe it should be encouraged.
as for Gibran… I enjoy his writing. But how else do you rear your child if not with your own belief system? Can we raise our kids in a system we don’t believe in?
Oh sweetie! I think you are over-thinking this! Your sweet little boy will always be the same – a sensitive, inquisitive, imaginative boy with a love for nature in all her splendour. So he likes Beyblades, it’s a fad.
The EO, as ‘boy’ as they come with his love for all things Beyblade, Ben 10 and the latest, Star Wars (*rolls eyes*), is still very much a bookworm with an insatiable appetite for mythology. While other boys are screaming and shouting to be allowed to play cricket and football, he would much rather sit curled up with his collection of Puffin anthologies or my towering stack of Amar Chitra Katha’s or his dad’s set of Tintin’s (ok, those are mythology, but still).
It’s all good, babe. Our boys will always be the sensitive creatures they were intended to be. And it’s nice that they fit in as well.
I really hope so. Can’t stand beyblades. Find them such a waste of time and only a marketing gimmick. As for overthinking.. that’s just me taking a fleeting thought and putting it into a blog post. 🙂
🙂 Well cheers to more fleeting thoughts, then!
As for Beyblades being a marketing gimmick, I couldn’t agree with you more — that’s exactly what they are!
And hey – just realised – my little one has exactly the same beyblade!!
Hey MM, am in Chennai currently and am seriously annoyed that all little boys are terribly obsessed with CRICKET here….off track, but just an observation on little boys for ya !! 🙂
cheers
h
Why you no posting new post?! 😀
no time 😦
okay posted.
ha ha, that was fast! 🙂