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Leave the girls alone



Recently I read an article written by an Indian woman on how she forgot to raise her son well while she paid particular attention to raising her daughter to be an equal citizen. When we talk about gender equality we often focus on girls. How we should raise them - encourage them to fight for their right; admit them to the best schools; never tell them ‘they can’t do it’ and raise their expectations rather too high. I am a mother to a six year old girl and I often cringe every time I tell her – she can do anything if she wants. While we focus too much on raising our girl’s right we forget to pay attention to our sons. 

I lived all my life in a boarding school, the first ten years in an all-girls school. Life wasn’t smooth. We felt foreign to the other gender. We giggled and burst out crazy if a boy approached us. We acted nonsensical at times. We didn’t know how or what they were. They were exclusive – all we saw was the other gender – foreign - boys. We lived in our own bubbles, we fantasized boys would be like the men from the mills & boons and that we indeed needed rescuing. In fact all of us wanted to be rescued – putting rather silly burden on the shoulders of these delicate boys whose mammas raised them to be pompous princess. But being in an all-girls school shattered our fantasies. We weren’t discriminated against our gender. We had to do everything – folding the chairs, carrying the piano stands during the concerts which were pretty heavy, decorating sports ground sometimes climbing the ladder too dangerous for a girl, leading the schools during inter school competitions and aspiring to be like our seniors who were all girls. 

Flash-forward, we grow up to finish college, get married and settle down. We leave our paternal homes forever. We realize we don’t need to lead anymore, our opinions doesn’t matter, we are never a part of the family decisions and well our precious bubbles have been burst by then. But at the same time we are trying to break that glass ceiling at work. We leave our young ones at home because we don’t want to fall behind. We compete at home to carve our identity and we struggle to strive at work. We are constantly trying to be the perfect mom, the perfect employee and the perfect whoever the society wants us to be. 

So I have decided I won’t fight anymore. If my girl likes pink color of everything I will encourage her so. I won’t tell her she should try other colors too. What’s the point, she is a girl she is bound to like pink and what is wrong with pinks for god sake? If I can’t give my 100 per cent at work I will take a back seat. If I cannot be the perfect someone for all the some-ones I am sorry but this is who I am. And I am not sorry I disappoint time and again because I am seriously tired of trying. 

And in the midst of all the craziness to achieve gender balance we have forgotten our precious boys. We still coerce them to play outdoors and like football or basketball passionately even if they suck at it. The boys have to be tougher, they shouldn’t be crying, they need to protect their sisters and their cousins. Why put so much pressure on our boys when we are already raising our girls to be independent and fight their own battles. Why not tell our boys, it’s ok to help mommy in the kitchen and it’s ok to help your sister clean up her room. Why can’t we raise our boys to be independent? Why do we raise them to be dependent on their wives to run their homes? Why are we still raising our boys exactly the way our parents raised our brothers? Forget our girls let’s start raising our boys the right way.

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