Summer holidays

I remember my summer holidays, like they were yesterday. The long, fun train rides down south, for close to 2 or more days. Lying on the hot upper berth, with the fan throwing more hot air around, in a languid daze. Making friends with ramdon people in the compartment, teaming up with new kids and becoming instant best friends, chasing each other up and down the bogie and playing card games. Looking out of the window at the passing procession of India, state after state, tunnels, rivers, forests and towns...Sharing food with people from across the country, eating a variety that one never got at home...

And then, getting to our destination, the sense of growing anticipation as we got closet to the station. Peering out of the window to see which of the relatives had come to receive us and take us home. Hanging out at my grandparents' house in Bangalore, reading my way through Oliver Twist and other classics, and years of issues of Reader's Digests from the '50s onwards.

Then Mysore, where my favourite cousins lived. We spent the whole day doing God-knows-what, with little or no adult supervision or interference. Our 'park' was a tiny temple opposite our house, and we spent the day swinging on the vines of the Banyan tree that grew there. We spent hours chatting and giggling over each meal, so much so that the adults would finish their meal and only then serve us, so that they could be done fast. At night, dad and uncle would get ready for the invasion of their myriad cousins and friends, who'd drop by to supposedly say Hi, then stay on for a meal, then drinks and endless games of 28 interspersed with airings of many old skeletons. Family gossip sessions were another highlight, and we kids would desperately rub the sleep out of our eyes and stay awake to hear all the anecdotes.

I'm a working mom, and though my parents live just down the road from us, they have eben away almost every summer since I had kids, visiting my sister in the US. So my kids, starting with Chubbocks, have been enrolled in summer camps. They have been great fun, from dramatic activities to an 'Around the world' series last year, arts and crafts, games and so on. And they have helped my kids stay busy and occupied at least for part of the day, given that both A and I would be out most of the day.

But I've always felt a little bit guilty and somewhat sad thinking of their summers. To think that they'll never understand the concept of unstructured time that they get to decide what to do with. To think that they'll never figure out what's it's like to create their own amusements and occupations, from fighting with each other to playing, getting up to mischief, gossipping, reading and all the rets of it. To imagine that they'll never have a time to remember when all the kids crowded into one room and slept huddled up together on mattresses on the floor, giggling helplessly at silly jokes and staying up late to play pranks on each other.

And so this summer. My parents are here until a week before the kids school reopens. A and I have to go to France and decided to go solo, sans kids, so they'll get a real experience of 'staying at grandma's, rather than visiting back and forth as they do everyday. I have consciously not enrolled them into any summer activities, hoping that they'll soon get into the rhythm of keeping themselves busy on their own. And later when my sister comes over, we're doing a weeklong family vacation, starting with a train trip to Bangalore with my parents and then a visit down memory lane to Mysore, where we all plan to stay together.

I guess the cousins will have many differences, from age-group to disciplines and schedules. But I'm hoping that we parents can find it in ourselves to let it go and chill, and let the, find their own levels. I want to give them a slice of my childhood summers to remember.

Chilling out during Summer holidays

This year we are feeling blessed. For two reasons, one simply because Delhi summer was too shortlived and we believe that monsoon has arrived this early (a first time in 108 years) Second reason is even more important one, my sonny R does not have to do any summer homework this year.

Summer holiday homework, is all but a child's job. As kids in grade 4 or 5, you are expected to do a 'reading' of one of the Charlie series books of Roald Dahl, or may be Ruskin Bond and then do a book review, along with summarising the key characters. Then the same has to be put together in a project format with drawings, pictures etc etc.

Ha ha .... this was just the English. For Hindi you could be expected to write a short story, a funny 10 line poem, some ' chutkulen', etc, do some drawings to give every thing a book look with one's individuality.

Maths, Science, Social Studies and French to follow....

Summer months are always high load months for me in office. Over and above we load our weekends with zillion of mundane chores. With a topping of holiday homework, the usual holiday sundae taste yummy.

This year it has been a complete bliss from that end.But ambitious mom like me thought this is the time for forward moving.... I sound so much like a proffesional investor... forward trading, hedging, ....

My boy somehow has managed to survive my occasional attacks by doing things in spurts. He is learning fast to handle a Mom caught between, a 20 hr (8hrs in office+ 3-4 hrs of spillover during the other timebands trying to cope with my colleagues in UK, on one hand to Singapore on other.

Never the less we make a great team together, waiting for some day, where all the pain we take turns into a miracle called success.

When my boy was as young as 3 or 4 yrs of age, he used to find it very difficult to accept Dad being away on projects and therefore back home only once for a week of flyback after every 4 weeks.

I used to tell him a story which continues even today. It was about a bird family. Where the Mama and Papa bird are equally strong, intelligent and hard working. So they fly far from their parents home to a huge tall tree and make a nest. One day a small wonder of a little birdie is born to them. They are very happy with the little one.But they know now they need a bigger nest, more food for 3 of them...and Mama bird has to take care of the little birdie so she can not fly far nor stay away from nest for long. Therefore Papa bird has to fly to a far away country and come back occasionally with lot more food and straws to make a larger nest some day.

Now the birdie is strong enough, and knows how to fly, but is not adult yet. The bird family needs even more food and straws for a bigger nest. Papa bird works hard and travels from one country to another. Mama bird works hard, but does not travel to another country. Little birdie comes back from school and stays with other little ones in day care so that Mama feels safe and can concentrate on work. They all are happy working hard, so that twice a year all three can fly to a far away land and have a great holiday.

Little Birdies these days are smart and intelligent. They are focused and they know for every comfort there is a price,... and no alternative for hard work.

Summer Plans?

If you live in any of india's big cities, you will find yourself inundated with ads and newspaper inserts advertising summer camps and activity centers for kids. And you will find many of them full to the brim of kids, all learning to do colouring or to sing songs or whatever. Whatever happened to the carefree schedule-free days of summer?

I don't know whether it's purely a function of working moms, because several of my son's classmates who have stay-at-home moms are also enrolled in these classes. Last year, after we got back from a 2 week vacation, we enrolled Chubbocks into a thrice-a-week three hours summer camp, because my mom was away in the US and I didn't want him drifting around with nothing to do. Yet I'm a bit upset that I did it because I think it's so important for kids to learn the art of simply being as well as amusing themselves.

As a mom, while I don't believe in 'quality time', I do believe in benign neglect. I think it does kids a world of good to just hang out in the same space as their parents, not necessarily being read to/ taught/ 'spoken to'/ made to do anything in particular which is meant to mark the time the parent spent with the kid as something special. When I look back at my own childhood, what I see is a string of days or a blurred period of time where we all hung out, chatted, fought, played, cried and laughed together. The undue emphasis on quality time just leads kids to think the world revolves around them and they never learn to just coexist in the same space as other people, without the warm shininess of a spotlight.

This summer, though I knew I wouldn't have too much time off, I didn't want to enrol Chubbocks into any classes, especially those that taught him anything. I think school is good enough for most things he wants or needs to learn. So we just put him into a dance class that's an hour twice a week, as some of his friends from school were joining up as well and that was that.

Of course, it has led to him moping around the house, as I feared. It's bizarre but he doesn't have any company around, despite the fact that the colony we live in is full of kids his age. That's because these days, parents just don't send their kids out to play because 'it's too hot'. I remember during my summer vacations, we were forever outside, jumping, running, shouting and playing, oblivious to the weather. We only came home for lunch and the afternoon nap and the evening too would pass in merry mayhem. The high point of a day would be a trip with parents to the India Gate lawns where we would chill on the cool grass near a fountain so some of the spray would fall on us, and have an ice cream or so ( me only the cone because I had bronchitis). There was nothing organised about our entertainment, and yet we managed very well, be it playing Blindman's Bluff or catch-catch, organising Telematch tournaments or playing hide and seek in the dim gardens that ran behind our homes. The local library was raided week after week, while old books were lent and borrowed. I made an entire set of posters of all my favourite comic book heroes - from Phantom to Mandrake to Richie Rich - to decorate my playroom, one summer.

I wonder if we as parents are becoming over-protective of our kids, in the process robbing them of the ability to think freely and learn to get along with the elements. Of course, no one wants kids to fall ill with heat stroke, but a bottle of water/ nimbu paani and a summer hat should be fine protection except during the dog-hours of noon, no? Even at birthday parties, the amusement is organised and orchestrated so that our poor kids lose the ability to come up with games for themselves. Can you imagine the well-groomed kids you see at a typical birthday party coming up with anything as subversive and creative as Calvin-Ball?

I hate the words, "I'm bored", and have banned them from our house. I can't remember being bored once, though we used to have few books or games at home and of course television didn't come into our home until we were much older. This generation of kids, with so many toys and books and games, still manages to find the time to get bored. How?

Chubbocks has managed his vacation time okay so far, between hanging out with his grandparents and writing out little notes on his doodlepad. Now we have my cousin visiting, with her kids, so that's a new source of enjoyment for Chubbocks. next year i'm planning to definitely take 3 weeks off during summer so that even if we don't go anywhere, I'm there for my kids to hang out with. And yet I'm clear that I don't want to be organising anything - camp or playdate. I want them to find their own playtimes and games, with each other or by themselves, though I'm never averse to jumping into a puddle of water.

"What is this life if full of care
We have no time to stand and stare
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows...?

Cross-posted at http://rain-bowdays.blogspot.com