Turning 20 together

From Sahar, my firstborn daughter, I learn the value of fearless self-care. My job is not to teach her to tone herself down. It is to learn from her how to unmask my feelings.

“Mamma, it’s our birthday tomorrow,” our firstborn told me the night before she turned 20 this week. “My birthday is also your birthday of becoming a mother.”

“Yes,” I said, hugging her softly. “It is.”

The pandemic years have been extra disruptive for the April-born. Sahar turned 17 when the first lockdown had paralyzed the country in April 2020, creating an unprecedented hunger crisis for India’s working poor. The next year she was sick in bed as the second wave of COVID-19 struck, bringing in a tsunami of death and trauma. In 2022, we were still reeling as a family and a society—unable to distinguish anymore what the direct causes of our prolonged fatigue and restlessness were.

“I want to talk to a therapist,” Sahar started telling me at some point in the last three years. I listened to her. I put in extra effort, trying to be a parent who was more present than absent even if we were in the same spaces most of the time. She was crying a lot. It was difficult to separate her personal growth pangs from the collective anxiety that seemed to engulf all of us.

This was uncharted territory for Sahar and me. We have always bonded naturally. I rely on her. She steps forward to protect me when I falter. She surprises me with her clarity and wisdom, reminding me repeatedly to honour the intelligence of the young.

It was hard for me to not take Sahar’s distress personally. To accept that it could be possible that I was not responsible for her stress and also that I did not have the resources to make her feel better.

Suddenly, we were in a landscape where we no longer knew the language that could console us. We needed to grieve safely. We needed to find a way to get help. To hold on even when nothing seemed to work.

The thing with the growing-up years of one’s firstborn is that you never quite have an accurate perspective on how young they are, especially when there are younger siblings serving as a foil. The firstborn always seems big, or old enough. When we  look back after a gap of years, parents often realize how little their child was when they were crossing big milestones for the first time.

OMG, I think now, she was not even two years old when she walked with such poise to the playschool in the neighbourhood, where I left her among bawling, distraught children. How calm she seemed, reassuring me that she would be fine. She was three when she returned home one day, picked up a book by bell hooks and began to pretend-read an adventure-filled story featuring rabbits and crocodiles that she was creating as she narrated it. My friend Aparna edited the video I shot and made a little film out of it.

On the eve of Sahar’s 20th birthday, I browsed through my blogs and journals reading snippets of conversations I have recorded.

“Tell me what to write in this parenting column,” I say to Sahar and her younger sister, Aliza in 2011. They are eight and six years old.

“This is the one that  parents read?” Sahar asks.

“Yes,” I say.

“Tell them not to make sad faces. I feel really bad when I see you with a bad expression,” says Sahar. “Two chocolate ice-cream cones,” says Aliza. “Tell parents that children want to eat two chocolate cones every day.”

“Thank you,” I say.

In the same year, Sahar is narrating a story to Aliza. “The turtle felt jealous,” she says.

“What does jealous mean?” asks Aliza.

“I know what jealous means, but I don’t know how to tell you.”

“Don’t go to school tomorrow if you don’t feel well,” I say to Sahar, whose childhood asthma would often flare up, draining her of energy.

She takes out a timetable from her school uniform’s pocket and unfolds it. Her finger traces the rows and columns to look for the menu on Tuesday.

“Oh-oh” she says, “I have to go to school. It is nariyal ki barfi for sweet dish tomorrow.” She used to pronounce it as “swiddish.”

“Mamma,” says Sahar, “you sleep late every day and wake up early every morning.”

“Yes, I do,” I say.

“Just like Hermione Granger,” she says. She is 10 years old. Her Mamma is pleased with the compliment.

In 2015, Sahar is 12. “You two are funny,” she says to us, her parents. “You only call each other sweetheart when you are fighting. You never use this word otherwise.”

On September 11, 2017, I receive an email from Sahar. She is 14 years old.

“Mamma, I read your book. It was beautiful, and it helped me figure a lot of things out.
I’m proud of you.
I love you.
Sahar”

My first book, My Daughters’ Mum, has arrived in bookstores. I receive the best review I can hope for from the protagonist of my memoir.

At the book launch, she volunteers to answer a question about my writing process, leaving everyone in the audience in splits.
(Watch Sahar at 2:10 in the video embedded above)

From Sahar, my firstborn, I relearn how to express moods. How to be crabby, angry, sad, weepy, happy and beatifically calm without feeling compelled to tone oneself down. Watching her I realize that my job is not to teach her to mask her feelings. It is to learn from her how to unmask my own expression. When I let go of my conditioned fears, I will raise fearless children who will know what to do with their hard-earned autonomy.

Sahar shows us how to stomp one’s feet while going up to her room to let off steam, bang a door once in a while and occasionally fling something across the room when she is frustrated with a moment. Because words… words are not always adequate.

She bakes brownies in the middle of the night. She walks our dog and cares for the cats. She records videos of her reviews of  books for young adults.

She embroiders flowers and octopii on her hat and jeans. Her short hair is various shades of pink these days—the colour one gets after scarlet-dyed hair has been washed a couple of times. She is preparing her father for the inevitability of her getting a tattoo one of these years.

Sahar loved her school for a few years and then gave up on traditional schooling by the time she was in middle school. She teaches herself whatever she wants to learn. She finds mentors when she needs them. She guides others when she is doing well. She has friends all over the country. Sometimes they are characters in books and web series. She is passionate about stories. Relationships. Identity.

She is learning to manage her time, energy and emotions—as all the rest of us adults are. I have often looked at Sahar and reminded myself of the possibility that she may simply be ahead of her time. Sometimes when we struggle to fit in, it may be because we deserve better. We don’t need to change. We owe it to ourselves to do justice to the self.

Parents are always at risk of losing perspective. We are socialized to be mindful of not boasting about the abilities of our children. Yet, we are forever making the mistake of underestimating them. We pass on shame inadvertently to our progeny.

Perhaps the greatest lesson I have learnt from raising Sahar is that the growth of my children is linked to my own in radical ways. Whatever I want them to learn, I only need to teach myself. When I stop expecting myself to be perfect, I also give up the expectation that they need to be perfect. When I focus on my own selfcare, my children find the energy to take charge of their well-being.

Practise minimalism in your expression of parenting. Learn to listen, without feeling compelled to intervene.

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(A version of this essay was first published in my monthly column at The Morning Context - Notes from Natasha. Subcribe here!)