A few days ago, my daughter shirked from other children at the playground, and clung miserably to me. This momentary act of insecurity didn't surprise me. It saddened me.
She was growing up without the coos of grandparents, aunts and uncles. Without indulging neighbors feeding her laddos and jelebis, without the ringing laughter of cousins and neighborhood friends. She's never heard a cow moo, and her mother's desperate simulations of farm animals, sound more like distress calls than animal cries. She's never woken up to dogs barking madly or cats climbing onto tables and snapping away the food. No, she lives in the bleached sterility of suburban America. Without wanting to make too facile an assumption, perhaps the simplicity of Goan childhoods lead to a better adapted adulthood. Never have I seen such strict parenting as is encouraged in America. Babies are shifted off to their own nurseries the day they are born and the American Association of Pediatricians all but criminalises the act of sleeping with the child in your own bed. Doctor Sears a leading opponent of separating child and mother, says that a child would rather sleep in a hovel in the crook of his mother's arms, than in any designer nursery. My own mother, who ventured the Atlantic to assist me post-partum, quickly got rid of the baby-cot and insisted on sleeping with her grandchild even to the point of depriving me the pleasure. Americans also expect miraculous understanding on part of these tiny creatures, who can barely express their need to be fed. Infants as young as 6 months are expected to learn to "put themselves to sleep" (a despicable method called "crying it out" is used incase they don't learn). Toddlers have to "behave themselves" at all times, at restaurants, parks, play-areas, etc. Infact, children are treated as tiny individuals with full comprehension of long debates on what is right and wrong. A Goan parent may use a smack as a fine debating tool, but he or she also doesn't burden the child with an endless rule book to follow either. My NRI Goan cousins stare at me mortified, that my daughter still sleeps with me, that I haven't enrolled her tiny body is some Montessori school, that I haven't taught her to drink from a sippy cup, that I haven't introduced her to Beethoven's fifth symphony but have instead been playing her Alfred Rose's "But I love you Daddy", tapes. All this is not to say that Americas don't love their children. On the contrary, Americans are deeply involved with the development of their children. But I do believe that our Goan model has much to offer in terms of social and emotional sustenance. Given all the material, nutritional and environmental well-being that America has to offer, it comes as a surprise that the fastest growing market for anti-depressants is for pre-schoolers. That afflictions like ADD, hyperactivity and anxiety are all to common in childhood. Adolescence is plagued with addiction, delinquency, an acute sense of isolation which leads to suicides and at the worst of time school shootings like Columbine. The rate of depression amongst adults is almost 10% of the population. Far be it for me as a layperson to infer causative relationships. But I will say this. Long live the Goan childhood. From a cursory look at children in Goa, I know they are healthy, happy and enjoying the innocence of childhood just as every child should. Selma __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ Goanet mailing list [email protected] http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
