#parentingjourney #parentingstyles
Stubborn or submissive?..what do I want my child to be?..


This is one thing that has been troubling my mind since yesterday. It so happened that I was coaxing my daughter with all my saam, daam, dand and bhed to eat a bottlegourd Vegetable, which she hates and I ended up saying?.." betaa..badey hokar Kya karogi..Shaadi ke baad sab khaana padtaa hai..infact banana padtaa hai?..Sasuraal me adjust karnaa padtaa hai etc etc..


The moment I said this I was reminded of my mom and grandma saying these same things to me and other girls in the family time and again on many issues where we girls felt that we were right and wanted to excercise our will, but they wanted us to adjust..


Today the scene is changing but many of us and our previous generations have been raised like this only...for some of us we had people on the other side who valued this gesture and took care of us but many others have paid the price of being too good and submissive!!


Also to add, not a single time any boy in our family was told this?..things were adjusted according to their wishes while we were expected to adjust always, so that in future when we marry and leave our home and go to live in another family, we start adjusting from day one and keep everyone happy!!..


Surprisingly, no one said that you also take care of yourself and your happiness!!


The question which I asked myself was, Do I want to raise my daughter the same way?.

Yes, as a parent of a child who is growing, it's a dilemma. Everytime fulfilling our children's wishes and tailoring things to their needs can give them an idea that they will always get what they want while on the other hand always asking them to adjust can affect their personality...as a mother, I don't want her to be a headstrong person who is too stubborn and doesn't know how to gel, love and respect others or how to sometimes sacrifice her wish for giving happiness to someone else but on the other hand I don't want to raise her with things like...

1. You adjust and sacrifice everytime.

2. You take care of everyone else's happiness not caring about yourself or your happiness.

3. You always give in to others wishes and live your life their way even if you have to loose yourself in the process

4. You make us proud by becoming a good wife, DIL and mother not taking care of your health and well being.

I want her to keep her head high, speak her mind when necessary, live for herself too, become able and independent, maintain and fight for her self respect if needed and do all this while not forgetting that in a family set up one has to give love, respect and also adjust sometimes for others to get the same gestures back.


It's really difficult to teach our growing children both things together but as parents we can just try. So my first attempt was to ask her to tell the benefits of eating green Vegetables and at least try that bottle gourd for that sake and also if someday it is the only thing available, may be even in a hostel then what will she do?.. while giving her a bigger potion of daal which she likes!!
What is your take on this friends?..