Outsourcing Parenthood

We live in a world where almost everything is ‘customisable’. Starting from the crust and topping of our pizzas to babies one can get customisation at all levels depending on the resources! What about parenthood? Is it customisable as well? Have we as parents found tools that will help us shape out the most convenient and effortless way of parenting? Well, the modern parents say Why not?! There was an old saying that Motherhood comes without a manual. But I am sure that was in a time when science and technology was still nascent and naive. Today’s parents have got it sorted from the very beginning. Let me chart out this in simple terms:

1. Pre-pregnancy workup

Deciding the time of pregnancy well in advance so that personal and  professional  goals are taken care of.

2. Birth of the child

With the surge of c-sections, the exact date and time of birth of a baby is being heavily customised. If you don’t believe me go to an obstetric operation theatre on a religious auspicious day or on the birthday of a luminary and you’ll know what I mean. You may well expect to be in a queue.

3. After child birth

• The real game begins here. ✓In comes the Aya ( the desi deglam term for Nanny) who is probably appointed at about the same time the umbellical cord it cut! Yes they are that much in demand.

And then there is ‘the screen’ ofcourse. The modern parents’ savior. Whether the paediatrician’s chamber while waiting for vaccination or at home refusing to eat, I have hardly met a kid these days who is not staring at a screen at watching Baby/Chuchu/ lulu TV!!!

• Daycare facilities

Imagine the plight of working parents of a nuclear family if man had not invented Daycares!

• Cctv cameras

Again a technological tool hugely popular among working parents where they would install cameras at home to keep a watch on their kids who is at home with the Nanny.

And somewhere amidst all this bustle and din the foetus turns into an infant then a toddler who turns into a preschooler who grows to a grad schooler, teenager and then a young adult. Voila!! seamless, controlled, customised parenting.

Sounds so perfect and perhaps easy too ain’t it? But is it really so? Can parenthood be really ‘outsourced’? Hell no! And why should it be? No a baby does not come with a manual. The baby ‘is’ the manual. She teaches you how to be a mother or a father. She teaches you virtues you yourself never knew you had! You can employ a thousand methods to make things easy but once you a parent you are always one. You’ll still worry, overthink, overreact and get overwhelmed. There cannot be an outsourcing of the feeling when the tiny little thing giggles with her gummy smile, takes her first steps or says her first words or the pain that we feel when they are not well, the worry that bugs when you go out without her. We all have our own ways. We learn, make mistakes, try more and become better with time. That is us. The parents. Cheers to us.

#parentinggyaan