Of Little Women and a little woman owning her story
A couple of months back our daughter insisted that I read the book that she had just finished reading. The name of the book is not that important (The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid, if you simply must know). What is important is that this insistence of hers, on us also partaking some experience that she cherishes, is becoming a regular feature. What is the big deal about this you may ask?
A bit of context setting is in order here.
Since the time I can remember, our daughter and I share a fairly common taste in many things - music, movies, books, clothes, brands, jokes, food (except Japanese cuisine which she loves, and I run away from). In her growing up years, the wife went extra lengths in exposing our daughter to various things - drawing classes, gymnastics, mallakhamb, dramatics, dance, theatre, phonetics classes, football, abacus, calligraphy, tennis, etc etc. Let me put it this way - the wife was responsible for the all-round grooming of our daughter, I was responsible for her escape from those pursuits. ;-)
The great thing was that our daughter was an equal and willing participant in all of these pursuits. And then she started growing up faster than we were comfortable with, or able to keep pace with. She developed a mind of her own, tastes of her own, choices of her own. We started feeling a sense of loss of control since what we felt was an equally participative relationship started becoming a unilateral imposition of things on to her. And a unilateral expectation of things. We were coming to terms with the fact that our daughter was expressing her likes and dislikes, sometimes quite vociferously. Her every rejection or resistance to what we proposed started getting seen as a mini rebellion by us. Fortunately we didn’t quash any of those rebellions. We came to accept, albeit grudgingly, that trying to fit her into our choices or viewpoints would be counterproductive. So there was this simmering peace that we settled down on.
When she was little, our daughter would have so much to share, so much to do together. She was in a state of constant excitement over things around her. Over the years all of that waned. It must be because of growing up. It must also be to do with the fact that just the way we found dealing with a teenager a task, she too must have found dealing with middle-aged folks equally excruciating. It suddenly became a me vs you, instead of us together. Both sides started seeing an agenda in everything we did. Which was true to some extent. And the result was that she may have been a bit wary even when it came to us, just the way we became a bit wary about everything to do with her.
Maybe it was her way of telling us that it was time we were in sync with the times - with her being the medium, not the other way round.
It could be all of these reasons. Or it could be none. But the net outcome was that we started operating in silos where entry into her world became an occasional event. And it was completely at her discretion. Mind you, it didn’t become dysfunctional. It just became very siloed. From being parents, we became an embarrassment. And the wife and I resigned ourselves to this new reality. Some comfort came from exchanging notes with our respective set of friends on their trysts with raising teenagers. It told us that we were not too badly off … essentially all of us were in the same boat.
It is against this backdrop that things have been taking slow, but sure, turns towards how they were not too long ago.
If my memory serves me right, our daughter’s insistence on experiencing something together happened during the pandemic lockdowns. And it started with a movie called Little Women.
Now, to give you a perspective, our daughter is a HUGE Timothee Chalamet fan. So our first response was like those of typical parents of a typical teenager who is besotted with some movie star or a rock star - we heard her but we didn’t listen. We deferred our viewing thinking it was yet another passing fancy. Not by a couple of days or a week. For more than a month. But she waited. She persisted. She insisted. And her insistence was on us watching it together. Till then it used to be that she would tell us to watch something, or go to some place or eat in some place. She would be okay irrespective of us complying with her recommendation/request or forgetting about it, or worse still, ignoring it. But this time round it was different. She just wanted all of us to see it together. The insistence was on together. And what a treat it turned out to be.
Another instance was about another movie, Call Me By Your Name.
Once again Timothee Chalamet. Once again the insistence on watching it together. But this time we not only heard, but listened. Immediately. Once again, an outstanding recommendation. Since then her recommendations and her insistence on experiencing things together have been flying thick and fast. Of course, Covid contributed quite a bit since all of us had nothing better to do than look at each other once work/college got over.
And her recommendations are not only to do with movies. They are about books, articles, some song she has heard, some band she has started following, some random Instagram posts, places to eat … the list is endless. And the insistence is always on experiencing it together. And invariably the recommendations are impeccably good.
This post is not, to borrow a term a friend recently used, a “boast-post-wagon” about my daughter. The point I am trying to make, and find an answer to, is on the insistence on experiencing something together. As her parents, of course we are over the moon every time she insists we do something together. But as Prem Chopra once said (but without the accompanying malice) - aap toh mera nature jaante hi ho. I always want to hypothesise, if not conclusively find, the why behind anything.
Don’t get me wrong here - it’s not like we are not happy about being forced to do something by our daughter. It’s just that it was a bit perplexing initially, especially in the times we live in where the concept of a family has gone from nuclear to atomic. Where each individual is bobbing around the way atoms do in their own silos, and the occasional coming together invariably results in fission, not fusion.
Coming back to why together? Why the insistence? Why the willingness to wait to make it happen? What was the subtle message she wanted to pass on to us? In the case of Little Women, was it about how life for her would have been had she some siblings? Did she want to tell us about it in her own way? In the case of Call Me By Your Name, was it about the strength of the bond and the implicit understanding between the father and the son? Why did she just want all of us to partake in something that she had deeply, deeply felt about? Maybe it was her way of reaching out. A hark back to the old days when she was a little kid who was absorbing and learning from everything that she was getting exposed to, that we were exposing her to.
My own conclusion is that it is her way of telling us that she is adulting. And not just in terms of the number of years she has inhabited the Earth. Maybe it was her way of telling us that, as an adult, going forward we should also start complying with things she asks us to do without asking too many questions. Just the way she did all those years ago.
That the days of transaction – if you do this, you’ll get something or we’ll do that – are over. For good.
That we have to have an implicit trust in her choices and judgments, just the way she had in us.
Maybe like the tagline of Little Women says Own Your Story, she wanted to tell us that she was ready now to own her story.
I can attribute the turning point from her being a kid/child to adult to one specific instance. At least that is the first time I felt I was talking to an adult. It was around the time she was in her second year of junior college. When it was that time of the year when all students are busy logging in hours of community service, joining classes for SAT, signing on counsellors for application guidance, prepping on their essays. All of her classmates, including her then BFFs, were all completely caught up in the process. While our daughter was in a chill mode. As many parents among all of you will endorse, when kids go into a chill mode, we go into a frenzy. Unwarranted thoughts and doubts about the abilities, and capabilities, and mental faculties of our kid occupy our mind space at all times. Me and the wife were no different.
Which is when she sat us down one day and told us simply, but in no uncertain terms, that she doesn’t find going through the entire rigmarole of prepping for an overseas education worth it, and worth her while. Mind you, she did join a coaching class for SAT, which she never appeared for. She did randomly apply to only one college in the U.S. (not some run of the mill, but a fairly reputed one at that) that didn’t insist on SAT scores, and got through - with a scholarship! But … but … what was the point of spending a few million rupees on an undergrad course that has no real, and real life, value over there as well as over here, she asked? What was the point of being away from the family for pursuing something overseas when the net short-term outcome is the imminent return to homeland only to figure out next steps in some other, or probably the same, part of the world, she asked? Wouldn’t we rather she get herself a degree from a prestigious and reputed institute right here than be part of the herd, she asked? The matter-of-fact way in which this major life decision was told to us left us stunned. But in a good way.
Her decision told us two things: that in spite of her seemingly uninformed ways of dealing with money, she knew that however much a thing a U.S. or U.K. undergrad degree might be, the monies simply don’t add up keeping its inherent value in mind. For someone who hated math with a passion, this math of hers added up very well. Secondly, it also told us that she knew what was worth her while to get into and what wasn’t. And that, going forward, we should leave those decisions to her.
From that point on, I feel our relationship with our daughter became one of equals. And we think that by respecting her decision, by not forcing some peer enforced ways of life, she too realised that we too are not all that bad to have around. Hell … it might just be fun to hang out together all over again. To not be embarrassed to go out for dinner in one of the most popular youth hangouts in the city. To try out a few craft beers once in a while. To not be embarrassed to cancel out on a date with a friend only because of a F1 race or because the last 3 episodes of a series have to be binge watched with us.
It also told us that we had to shed our cloak of parenting the way we thought was right, but to allow the adulting of our kid to bloom.
The reason for me going into this super introspective mode is because there are some milestones that make you sit back and reflect on occasionally. Of course, if you happen to be an introspective introvert, then that is all that you do, milestone or no milestone. One such milestone in one’s journey as parents is when your kid graduates. Which is what happened a couple of weeks back. Our daughter graduated. Of course the convocation and the whole square-hat-flinging-in-the-air shebang is yet to happen. But her excellent results tell us that she has qualified for it. (Yes, yes … all your congratulations and all the very best’s will be duly shared with her.)
G.R.A.D.U.A.T.E.D.
The period marks after every letter are representative of how the news is sinking in. Bit by bit. And with every bit the realisation, and the reality, is dawning upon us that she is now kind of ready to go out in the world. Actually, let me correct that. The realisation, and the reality, is dawning upon us that now the wife and I need to be ready for her going out in the world.
What next, and when next, for her? She knows best. She is all set to own her story.
Be braver. Be kinder.
For Keep Watching this time, instead of a review of some movie or web series, I leave you with the final scene from Call Me By Your Name. While the movie is no doubt a brilliant and sensitive portrayal of young relationships, this scene for me is the best closing credits I have ever seen. If I were the jury at the Oscars, this one scene would make Timothee Chalamet a hands down winner for me! Even with a playing field comprising heavyweights of the likes of Denzel Washington, Daniel Kaluuya, Daniel Day-Lewis and Gary Oldman (the eventual winner) as his fellow nominees. What a magnificent performance from a then 22 year old! What screen presence and what confidence to deliver so much feeling, so much angst, so much helplessness, so much vulnerability … and with so much poise and restraint … and that too only through the eyes, without a spoken word … all shot with a single cut that happens before the camera settles on a tight close-up on the face … with a haunting track by Sufjan Stevens that only amplifies the feelings and emotions … it’s 5 minutes of sheer magic on screen!
Wow! Your best so far Shantanu! Perhaps bcos it’s more relatable and I could see myself in your shoes. How dear are those moments when our child asks us to “do things together”. Never ever say “later”. Grab those moments right then, with both hands and with abandon. Mazaa aa gaya Vijay babu!
What a treat! Took my time to soak in every word. “You got me all misty eyed!”