This was written when Aneesha was about three and it was published in the papers. This was the picture that went with it. Since there's a bona fide kids blog, this seemed worth repeating.
Among the zillions of other things that I'm getting wrong as a first time mother - like not sending kid for music class, dance class, ballet class, swimming class, phonics class..... let me add another one - I've wittingly or unwittingly - taught her to be nice to strangers.
So people look at me rather strangely when she says hi to the person who steps into the lift.
And the bus drivers, I never forget their expressions when she goes 'bye, see ya now...'
One of them was so impressed he just had to shake hands with the little dame for actually saying thanks for the ride.
I know from the looks I beget that I am this crazed mother who isn't teaching her kid to be afraid of strangers. Maybe I am - slightly crazed - I mean.
But I never quite recall my Mum telling my sister and I to be paranoid of strangers. We just grew up with this general camaraderie towards folks around us, and somehow this instinct thing made me sense danger - if it ever did lurk in the distance.
Like Mum always told us to wish everyone but never take anything from a stranger. So there was this subtle conditioning about folks you came to know as acquaintances and others who were our friends.
Today, we seem to be bringing up kids who are taught to fear strangers. Though statistically speaking that isn't quite the biggest fear - but that's quite another story.
Yes, there are reasons for fear - kidnapping, abuse, rape - to name just a few horrible few.
But then there are also the other very real dangers - like I could walk out today and get hit by an oncoming vehicle and that could well spell the end of me or have the cab skid in a flash flood and be gone in a jiffy.
As a mother, I well share the fierce protectiveness of parents, the better safe than sorry sentiment.
What I regret in the midst of all this is the innocence lost, the way we allow fret free childhoods to slip away with our subtle conditioning, the way in which we teach them not to trust, not to reach out to folks in need unless they've been certified fit and appropriate by us knowing adults.
And that's a habit, once picked up through subtle or not so subtle conditioning can last through adulthood, where it's bound to manifest itself in even more dangerous ways.
In our suspicion of those who look different from us, and our quick willingness to blame them for our ills; or in our tendency to hide behind the walls of our secure homes that we believe will keep us safe from the world of strangers.
So what are we really teaching our kids?
Among other things - Don't take risks. Keep to yourself. Look away when someone asks for help. Hide behind something that will keep you eternally safe from strangers.
Now that's something I guess none of us wants as a parent.
PS: 4 years have passed since I penned this and I'm pleased to report that while I don't have a perfect twosome, they are always around to help. If you were to watch them closely, they will open the lift door for people waiting to get in, they will be the last ones out, they will open our secure condo doors for you. The other day, Aneesha first opened the lift door, then entrance door for a lady who was pregnant. I was so impressed and imagined that she will pause to say thank you, if not a chat. So imagine my shock, when the woman stuck her nose in the air and walked off like this was her birth-right.
I know, I was as shocked as Aneesha. We were crest-fallen and I'll never forget how glumly she said: "You always taught me to say thank you."
