Parenting Outsourced

November 23, 2008 

Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. - Elizabeth Stone

How one takes care of a piece of one’s heart is individualistic. Let me start with mine. The decision to have Li’l General was not momentous : a carefully thought and well-timed decision when I felt I’d had enough of my career and was ready to take a break without the nagging urge to go back within three months of maternity leave. Yet, I did not have the slightest idea of what was in store. As I look back at those 39 weeks now and read the blog posts dating back to my pre-delivery days, I realize it was very much taking one day at a time. So it was a total shocker on the operating table on the D-day as I realized how naive I had been to not think about it or even understand the whole process. V and I did not invest in any baby literature - books, videos, DVDs, anything for that matter. The only information related to what was going on was through the Baby Center Newsletter - a good friend at work casually mentioned this site sometime during my 27th week. What ensued in the following weeks after our son LG’s birth was even more funny as I reminisce now. One morning eight days after LG was born, we were to take him to the Paed for at-birth vaccination that had been delayed due to his calcium-deficiency condition. Three adults - V, my mother and I - were sprawled over the bed trying to figure out how ISRO managed to plant the tricolor on the moon. Alright, jokes apart it was serious stuff that required an equivalent amount of brainpower. We were discussing which was the front part of the diaper and how it should be secured around LG’s hips. I was holding the newborn diaper pack that my dad had got from Bahrain (wish I had known the imported pack was available at the pharmacy round the corner) while V and my mom were holding one end each as I narrated the steps. It took us 17 minutes to get the damn diaper on. More experimentation followed for various other things in the following weeks from how to bathe the baby to hey, there’s something called wipes to clean the baby after you-know-what. In the end, we gave up on new age parenting and LG grew up as a baby in the old-times co-sleeping with me and bathing on my legs.

In short, no one told me it was a 24-hour-a-day job and that parenting did not allow for annual leave, casual leave or even sick leave. It meant one could not nap when one wished to and had to time it with the kid’s nap times even if it were 10:17 a.m. And like Chetan Bhagat said in a recent article having kids could be like owning a luxury car. High maintenance stuff. When people ask you, “When are you planning to start a family” they don’t reveal it must be your lucky day if your newborn hasn’t pooped while you are having lunch or that it could be months before you and your spouse could have a meal together. This is the only way of parenting I knew from my experience with LG the past two years or had ever been exposed to.

The move to Bangalore was an eye-opener. The city doesn’t limit itself to its role in outsourcing in technology. With hundreds of families hiring full-time nannies to take care of their babies as young as 12-week-olds, the city has redefined “parenting” by “outsourcing” the harder aspects of rearing children. Nannies have been around for centuries now, more prevalent among the affluent families and a practice that was more acceptable socially in North India. Last October en route Amritsar while we were waiting at the lounge of New Delhi airport, a lady walked over to our bay whose upkeep I admired - designer glasses pushed over highlighted hair, perfectly shaped and painted nails, leggings and a well-fitted top showing off her curves. As I saw her two kids tagging along with the youngest barely a few months old, my open admiration for her getting back in shape so soon was all too evident. I almost fell off my seat when two nannies lugging suitcases and baby essentials followed - yes one nanny for each kid. When the maids are there to deal with new born’s colickiness and stay up nights, even a new mother can work out in the gym and afford visits to the parlor.

Closer home every evening’s visit to the park unfolds a new story. I do find it odd (proud?) at times that I am the only mother present there while all the other kids come with maids. It’s hard to miss the excitement on LG’s face while the other kids lit up when their parents return from work. I’m not justifying my staying home with LG or questioning the career choices of other parents’. However, there are a few interesting tales of parenting outsourced here. There is this kid who comes in multiple layers of clothing : socks, leggings underneath, two monkey caps (yes, two so that even if one flies off the other stays), inner followed by a dress followed by a sweater, and hand gloves. Seriously, I wonder if this is Siberia at times looking at the kid’s clothing or if she was born near the equator. One day seeing the poor kid sweating profusely because naturally it was sunny outside, I asked the nanny, “Why don’t you remove a layer? It’s hot.” Pat came the reply, “I’ve been instructed not to. Her parents feel it might be cold outside.” Can the mother please step outside home or take a break from social obligations to check the weather and stop discussing how to keep a 14-month-old gainfully engaged?

I am often asked, “Why don’t you get someone to look after Li’l General? You know, here everyone hires somebody even if the mother is not working - it’s considered classy.” Seriously? The rest I get to see for myself. Often parents go out mall-hopping on weekends leaving the kids with nannies at home and they are the most miserable then because they get to see less of parents than weekdays. I’ve never understood this. For most birthday parties, the nanny accompanies kids even if the mother is around. Is it too much to handle your kid at a party? The benefits are endless - you get to have a second helping of panipuri while the nanny struggles with the kid to have a spoon of cake. From bathing to feeding to napping, the harder tasks have been outsourced. So what’s left? Saying “hello darling” with a kiss on the cheek to turn over the child again to the maid. If it’s grannies as nannies in US, it’s maids in Bangalore.

DINKs, SAHMs, WAHMs, and now DUNKs : the media goes on a frenzy inventing and re-inventing terms for what used to be simply known as families, parents, and mothers until a few years back. It fills their pages on one hand with stories of some Rohan-Niketa working for big corporates leading a fancy lifestyle with a six-figure annual package, dream home, long cars, and exotic vacations - you know the stuff life is made of before you have kids (alright, none of these vanish away but you start making adjustments in the way you lead your daily life and priorities change). The stories usually doesn’t stop there, it goes on to justify with quotes from a few more couples on why they decided not to have kids. EVER. On the other hand one starts wondering how much of reality there really is to all these claims, if they are fictitious stories, and if they are indeed true what percentage of the urban population do these people represent to warrant mainstream media space week after week.

In all honesty, I’ve yet to come across a family that has decided to go child-less for ever. Delayed, sure - there are scores of them. Never? I don’t know. Middle-class Indians do aspire to have a family. What they have also started yearning for a is a good lifestyle that comes with double incomes. So getting your kid a Rs.500 Liliput sandals and Rs.1,000 Gini & Jony shirt is more important than snuggling and putting your child to sleep or struggling to feed him a balanced diet. Knowing that my son was happy to see thousands of penguins in the movie “Happy Feet” or the crazy flying dog in “Underdog” (rationed TV viewing) or that he prefers to feed Bournvita to his buddy Dolphie before drinking himself makes life satisfying than filling his room with Fischer Price toys. The Rs.65 auto I can afford with ease now and play along with him makes him more happy than playing alone in a room full of imported toys with an indifferent maid. I’ve no idea what the whole point of this post was, just that it’s quite irritating at times to see people comment “I like being hands on with my kid for atleast one day in a week.” Great, so when did kids start becoming tools that you want to be hands on? It’s not the career choices I’m against - every family has a different financial obligation. It’s parental avoidance in child rearing that is intriguing. Driver to drop and pick up kids, tuition teacher to give lessons, nannies for everyday activities including shopping, potty-training, attending parties, buying gifts, disciplining, and comforting. So what’s your role as a parent?

Edited to Add :

This post is featured in Bangalore Mirror as Children are high maintenance stuff

 

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Comments

4 Responses to “Parenting Outsourced”

  1. neeti on November 24th, 2008 6:32 am

    Lakshmiiiii….bingo…there you go once again…voicing (infact writing) my thoughts, my view point, my idea of parenting. You give words to the feelings of our genre of ex-professional,now surprisingly v homely females enjoying the maternal experience to the hilt :)I say this aloud so many times…y do people have kids in the first place if they cant spend time with them. Parenting outsourced to maids, boarding schools is just not my idea of bringing up a kid.

    n btw…our career trajectories are again on the same path…no marks for guessing the reason …hehehe

  2. Vivek Nath on November 24th, 2008 11:57 am

    Production Function.. matter of time when that gets outsourced too and you cud even have kids like puppy dogs, from Pomererian, german shepherd to Rotweliers :))

  3. Suresh on November 24th, 2008 10:25 pm

    “So what’s your role as a parent?”

    I’d like to think there’s no such moral responsibility of assuming such roles for a parent to justify their love and affection. Sorry, that’s what your comments makes me conclude upon.

    One could have million people / ways to take care and raise their loved ones — what do you think gives you the right to question their role as a parent? It’s absolutely a personal affair.

  4. Lakshmi on November 25th, 2008 3:59 pm

    Neeti : Since we are on the same side, it might be difficult to understand others POV at times, I guess.

    Vivek : Oh well, that’s already being done in many countries though in some places such as NY, it is illegal. Surrogacy?

    Suresh: I expected a lot more flak for this post and surprisingly, you happen to be the only one so far. Just so I make my stand clear, it’s not questioning the moral responsibility at all here. And neither does love or affection come into the picture. The whole reason for this post was why does child rearing by a parent raise so many eyebrows? Has it become so abnormal now for a mother to raise her own child? And well, let aside moral responsibility I’m sure parents can exercise common sense in the least to entrust a child with someone. I’m sure no parent would appreciate a maid smooching a year old kid or smacking in the name of disciplining. It’s nothing personal just a lot of what one sees!

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