This John Mayer song is playing softly on your radio, and you catch the lyrics, “You are the guide and the weight of her world.”  You are suddenly aware of the disapproving look on your face and your negative body language.

 

I am my child’s guide and the weight of her world.

We hear a lot about seeing the world through a child’s eyes, but we forget that a child sees himself reflected in our eyes.  Our children may see themselves as the cause of our anger, frustration, or sadness, even though these emotions may be caused by something entirely unrelated to them.  I know that this isn’t what we want for them.

I treasure my son and often complain that I don’t get to spend enough time with him.  But I must admit that when I am with him, my face, words, and body language don’t always reflect how much I value him.  In fact, rather than being lit up with joy at being with him, my face is often lit up with the glow of my smartphone.  Instead of focusing on the status of the face in front of me, I’m checking the Facebook status of people miles away from me.

But how can I refocus on what’s important?

During maternity leave, I learned about the concept of mindful parenting from my wonderful mom/baby yoga teacher.  A mindful parenting practice involves stepping back from the immediate situation, becoming aware of our own thoughts and reactions, and refocusing ourselves.  Mindful parenting can help us to step away from negativity and be the parents that we aspire to be. These exercises are examples of ways that we may practice mindful parenting. (By the way, I don’t necessarily subscribe to the “unschooling” that the blog in the link advocates, but I do like the article on mindful parenting).

Sometimes, we spend time with our children by organizing family trips to the aquarium or elaborate craft projects.  These are great, but the bulk of our children’s childhoods are made up of the seemingly mundane moments.  Gretchen Rubin, of The Happiness Project fame explains this concept beautifully with this 2-minute movie. It’s up to us to appreciate these moments and make the best of them.

For me, mindful parenting is also about helping our children develop a positive sense of self by giving them positive messages about themselves.  I recently came across this catchy and touching song that Will.I.Am performed on Sesame Street:

The lyrics remind our children of all of the wonderful things they are – smart, brave, magical, special, helpful, friendly, and more.  Singing or listening to this song together in the morning would be a great way to get ready to face the day.

In what ways do you practice mindful parenting?  What are your favorite mommy-child moments of the day?

1. Being in a Book Means Your Story Is Worth Telling

Children’s books about Indian Americans lend legitimacy to our languages, religions, foods, cultural practices, and/or our many skin colors.  This is crucial in building their self-esteem.

I was in college when I read one of my first novels featuring characters from the Indian diaspora, Meera Syal’s Life Isn’t All Ha Ha Hee Hee.  Though it has been years since I’ve read the novel, I can vividly recall how validating it was to read about characters like me.  It was one thing to gab with a couple of my Indian American girlfriends about aunties, dating, cultural identity, and growing up.  It was quite another to read a published novel that I could buy in a bookstore with characters like me, grappling with the same issues.  Wow.  Our experiences mattered outside of our immediate communities. They were worthy of mass distribution.

In a democratic society, public institutions such as libraries must reflect all of our stories, not just those of a few ethnic or religious groups.  It’s up to us Indian American moms to ensure this.

2. Books Relieve You of the Burden of Representing Over a Billion People

Have you ever been at a work lunch, and the topic of your ethnicity comes up, and suddenly you have to be the sole representative of all peoples of all South Asian countries?  You’re grilled about the caste system, tandoori chicken recipes, the languages of the region, ethnic violence, and yogic poses.  I’ve always found it so burdensome.  Though I know a lot about some of these topics, I don’t know it all.  Nor do I want to have to speak for so many.

If it’s difficult for us, imagine the burden that our children face when a teacher asks about Hinduism’s many gods or when a friend asks why Indians eat with their hands.  Wouldn’t it be great if the people around our children had some background knowledge about Indians and Indian Americans?  That would relieve them of (at least part of) the heavy burden of having to speak for over a billion people around the globe.

I felt the effects of this lifted burden when I joined a knitting class composed of white women in their 60s and 70s.  At the time, I was in my 20s and had just gotten married and moved to a city in the midwest.  Lonely and jobless, I found myself in a basement knitting class with a group of senior citizens.  Somehow, our chatter led to the topic of Indian weddings, and imagine my surprise when they told me that several of them had read The Namesake!  It was so liberating to explain my husband’s and my “arranged introduction” by referring to Gogol and Moushmi’s courtship rather than to have to explain the whole thing from scratch.

It’s clear.  Well-written and accurate books about Indians and Indian Americans are crucial to battling stereotypes about us.  When we were growing up, sometimes the only thing classmates knew about Indians and Indian Americans was that Apu of The Simpsons was one.  

I’m sure this is not what you want your children’s classmates to think of when they think about Indian Americans.  Let’s get some more positive images out there.

In the wake of 9/11, we battle even more pernicious stereotypes about our cultures.  Quality children’s literature can help dispel these stereotypes by creating a healthy dialogue.

3. And Now for the Confession

I’m obviously convinced that Indian American children’s literature is important, but I must confess that I don’t  know of a single quality Indian American children’s book that I can recommend to my local library.   

So I invoke readers and authors to recommend some good children’s books that I may review and recommend to my local library.  I will be reaching out to some Indian American children’s book authors to get my hands on some books and you do the same.  My son is an infant, so I lean towards board books or picture books with high-contrast colors.  You may leave your recommendations in the comments section.

My vision for I Am Moms is to develop a blog where we can do all of these things.  I love to peruse mom blogs, including this one to be inspired by fun, colorful decor and crafts, or this one, whose author is far more honest and hilarious than I am brave/funny enough to be, or this one for a quick laugh.  There’s also this one, whose author poignantly wrestles with her own difficult childhood and transition to gentle parenting.  But through all of my blog-reading, I haven’t found a good mom blog that speaks to the unique issues that Indian American moms face.  I hope to fill that void.  

When I started out, I hoped to post 3 times per week.  But I’ve bumped up against the reality that working a full-time job and being a mother to an infant and trying to do a good job at both leaves little time for blogging. 
It also might mean some typos (and I find this blogger’s view on the subject very liberating!).

So I hope you’ll be patient with me as I build I Am Moms to be the blog I dream it can be. 

Yes, we’re going through some growing pains.