My introduction to adolescence was a movie in school, on how sanitary pads are made and how to use them. And an elder cousin telling me not to shake hands with any boys or men. Weird, right? It was beyond me why I shouldn’t shake hands with any male! Following this was the biology chapter on reproduction in Class X, where the boys’ whistles and sniggering were louder than our teacher’s voice. We all just mugged up the chapter for our exams and that was that.
There were no adults, internet, or Cosmopolitan to guide our generation through the many changes we were experiencing, physically and emotionally. When the movie “Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam” came out, many of us could very well relate to Aishwarya Rai’s character, when she went into a panic over being kissed, lest she became pregnant!
There’s A Wrong Way…
Watching over your children (especially daughters) like hawks, curtailing their freedom, or worse, marrying them off at the earliest, are not the solution. Such decisions are detrimental to the child’s emotional and psychological growth, as well as your and the child’s relationships in life.
Let’s get one thing straight: Where there’s a will, there is always a way. So despite your prison warden’s stance, if your child wants to explore their sexuality, they most probably will, albeit secretly. And therein lie the pitfalls.
The risk of exploring one’s sexuality with the wrong person is especially high, in today’s times where everyone has a mobile phone with a camera. I’m sure you understand the possible repercussions of that.
The risk of catching a sexually transmitted disease is higher, because of half-baked or no knowledge about protection. Or the alarming outcome: pregnancy, and then perhaps a hasty abortion done in some seedy clinic by a quack, which might lead to more harm to a girl’s well being.
…And A Right Way
A girl’s individuality, life, and self-respect do not exist in the hymen! Nature has bestowed women with the beautiful blessing to birth and nurture. Let us stop turning these blessings into a curse and horror for our girls. A boy’s manhood is not in overpowering a girl, but lies in respecting her in every way.
Teach your sons to respect girls and women and their choices. Teach your daughters to be proud of being the kind of woman who can achieve anything she wants if she works hard for it with honesty and determination. Only then we can raise a generation with a healthy outlook towards each other. We need a generation of young people who respect each other as individuals, instead of boys looking at girls as pieces of meat or furniture to possess and misuse, and girls looking at boys as their ‘ticket to freedom’. It can only lead to a safer and secure society and country.
But How To Begin?
Ideally, sex education should also be mandatory in all schools, but till that happens let us fulfil our responsibility as parents, instead of waiting for someone else to do the needful.
The shame and embarrassment around sex needs to go. And it must begin right from talking to your kids about it, to walking into a chemist’s with them to buy sanitary pads or protection.
Having lived my youth trying to find the right path in the dark, and now as a parent to a daughter, I was very clear of my role as not just her parent but also a friend and guide. Developing a comfortable relationship with my child was the beginning, where we both discussed any topic under the sun. Yes, it did get embarrassing at times, especially when the ads for sanitary napkin or condoms flashed on the television, while spending time as a family. The best way to act at such times was not to thwart her natural curiosity with silence.
As a parent it was my responsibility to satisfy the curiosity of my child to the best of my ability, instead of scolding or hushing or ignoring her queries.
Communication Is The Best Solution
I recognised the need to begin ‘THE’ talk with her—of the birds and the bees, albeit in age-appropriate stages and keeping in mind her ability to understand it. The impact and result of this extremely essential communication was that she has always confided in me and still does, when she is an adult herself now. This keeps me clued into her life and thoughts and I gently guide her wherever needed. At the same time, I encourage her to take independent decisions after giving them due thought. And being the sensible individual that she is, I stand by proudly watching her grow. And she grows, secure in the knowledge that her parents stands by her side no matter what.
Dear Parents
Our children are not our possessions. They are our responsibility, gifted to us by the Universe to love and nurture. Let’s throw away the age-old patriarchal norms and embrace and accept our children as individuals.
Please understand, if you do not communicate with your children and give them timely guidance and much needed support with love, they WILL either find other ways or sources to satiate their curiosity and establish their individuality. And these sources may lead to harm, in turn leading to lack of confidence and low self-esteem, among other complexes.
Educating them is arming them with the knowledge to make the right choices for themselves. Give them the space to grow as individuals, the stable support to trust their parents, and be a friend so they can approach you for guidance and help.
In today’s time, when the world is truly their oyster with everything just a click away, it is essential to stand by them, both through their trials and errors, their strife and accomplishments. Because, rest assured, they will stumble and make mistakes, just as we all did. But how they emerge from that mistake will depend upon whether you were or weren’t there for your child.
I leave you here to mull over this, with Khalil Gibran’s profoundly beautiful words:
“Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.”