Desperate Housewives!!

Am I one?!! The answer to this question is what i dread the most! First off ,I hate the term house wife!(Sounds a lot like trophy wife!!). Ya, nobody uses that term any more, the sugar coated,”home maker” has replaced it. Does that make the desperation go away?!! In my opinion,(and I can say this safely as it is aso directed at me!), “home makers” have a lot of time to be desperate! Having been on both ends of the scale I have discovered that I was more productive and proactive when I was juggling work and home and family. I always seemed to fin time to clean, cook, chauffer the kids around. True, I would feel extremely tired at the end of the day but when I hit the bed I get the well earned sleep.

Now that I have been on a break for a while, believe it or not, i feel tired a the time. The max amount of work around the house is not for more than an hour and I seem to be busy all the time!!(doing what, even I don’t know!!). I tend to go into a cocoon that prevents me from looking to see what is outside it. Am I bordering on depression or is it the rude wake up call in my mind?!!

What I say here is probably true of most “house wives”. People say that it is a lot of work, being a home maker. That is probably true of a handful of them but I can boldly say that the majority of us just waste our time for the most part of the day. I don’t mean to say that the only other alternative os to go to work, find a job and all that. There are so many nice ways of spending the day in an enlightening and enjoyable manner. We could persue some long lost interest. ( I am probably thinking aloud here!) So ultimately I have come to the conclusion that I could do so many things while I was working because I had no choice and necessity became the mother of invention. So I think that I should pretend that if I didn’t do a certain thing at a certain time, there is no other time to complete the task and then see what I can do with all the free time I get…….. Maybe I can catch the show!!

Wednesday

I had kind of given up on Indian movies for a little while. I was, at one point in time, infatuated with movies, especially, Tamil and Hindi. I would watch almost every movie that came out and would be so involved with them.(So much so that ppl at home called me “See Pai” {cinema paitiyam}). Somehow, I just lost interest in movies after a while. Not that I didn’t watch any movies but I really didn’t enjoy them much and if there was an option of doing something else I would resort to that.I consider the reason for this to be movies, recently have been highlighting the underworld, violence and ugly scenes, all in the name of reality! I agree that they do bring awareness about how difficult life is getting these days, no doubt, but they tend to get too realistic sometimes. Actually they kind of leave the audience with sad and negative feelings that tend to haunt them for days! All because they get too realistic! Everybody knows that life is hard and there are many hurdles to face. It is not like these movies bring out solutions to problems or suggest a positive way of looking at life where there is so much fear and uncertainty! There are a few feel good and positive movies like Mozhi and Tare zameen par but there aren’t enough of them. Most of them are either mindless Masala or these wannabe
socialistic films. There doesn’t seem to be much of a choice, is there?!

However, one movie that I watched recently really impressed me! Wednesday – a simple movie with an off beat approach! I liked it because it is not ‘filmy’ but at the same time, there are no gory scenes and dingy or gloomy backgrounds (reality ngra Perla!). There is no angry young man (well, there is, but not the hero!). There is no claim to do super human feats to reform the society! But it has perfectly captured the emotions of a common person who goes about his/her routine just like the next person. At the same time it has a gripping narrative quality that commands the audience’s attention. I wish there would be more movies like it.

Peer Pressure

Is Peer Pressure a good thing?! I wonder all the time. Peer pressure could sometimes be misunderstood for “healthy competition”! We hear all the time about kids that yield to peer pressure which ends up making their lives miserable! True, but kids are not the only ones affected by peer pressure. Though most of us may hate to admit, we are very much swayed by peer pressure. It affects the adults in a more complex way.

A lot of time, I find that parents are actually more competitive than their kids. They somehow feel that their kids are God’s way of giving them a second chance to do all the things they missed out on while they were growing either due to lack of opportunity or due to lack of initiative or, of course, to fight the effects of their parents’ peer pressure (am I going around in circles here?!) It is not fair for us to make our kids live the life we wanted to live. I agree that it is important to provide our children with all the opportunity to learn and gain from life. Parents always complain that their children ask for things and blame peer pressure for it but how different are they. I have known many parents who put their children in various classes and other activities just because their neighbor’s or friend’s child does it. It is another way of comparing our kids with others and it may have serious repercussions. In trying to force our kids into something we may actually be succeeding in creating an aversion for these things which, left to themselves, they may want to try out. I believe that it is good to let the children try al these co-curricular activities and let them decide reasonably which is the activity that they most want to do. Of course, children tend have prejudice over many things without trying them at all. For this reason they should be exposed to a variety of activities to choose from and when they make their choice, they should be able to validate it. A reasonable agreement can be arrived at after discussing with them. This gives them confidence and a sense of independence at having made important decisions. Easier said than done, I accept but this way they learn to take full responsibility for their actions and feel good about being treated like an adult.

I had mentioned earlier that Peer pressure can sometimes be misunderstood for competitiveness. It is good to have the drive to try and excel in any activity or comeptition but it is very important to know that winning is not everything. I went to this dance show where many young children did wonderfully well. There was this little girl who did a classical number,adorned in beautiful costume and jewellery. She did a reasonably good job though she forgot a couple of her dance steps. She looked a bit upset as she got off the stage and desperately searched for mother hoping to be comforted by her. Her mother came upto her and instead of hugging her and appreciating the fact that it was brave of her to go up on stage and performed and telling her that it was allright and nobody noticed her mistakes, she immediately took her to task for making mistakes and saying that it was no good! I doubt if the child would ever willingly go on stage for another dance performance again and all thanks to the mother’s “competitiveness”.

we often hear ourselves telling our kids that just because the neighbor’s son or daughter has a certain thing is no reason for them to expect to have it too but at the same time we would go and enroll our child in an advanced class because our friend’s child goes there!Children can be cured of Peer Pressure only if their parents are cured of it first!! Hope writing this helps me not be a victim of Peer Pressure!