That one message for parents: Let it be

I want to start by telling you about Jiya. “I constantly feel as if I am wasting my time. I feel so guilty,” Jiya told me as she rubbed her frail arms as if trying to soothe herself. I wondered since when this feeling of wasting time and guilt had been around and she rocked back and forth for a little while, eyes darting from wall to wall and said in a pained voice, “I don’t know, it’s always been there. I feel I am not on top of things. I am not productive.” As you read this conversation I might assume that this guilt might seem familiar to you. This churn, this nagging voice that grates us into believing that we are not doing enough, that we need to do more, better and faster. You might see it as a problem but maybe you might shrug it off and say, “We all have to learn to cope with it.”

What if I told you that Jiya was just eight years old? Would you still ask her to “cope with it”? Jiya had been brought to me by her parents as they were worried about her crying, not being able to sleep at night and “being on the edge”. They wondered if it was anxiety and if I could teach her some coping skills for anxiety. Fair expectation, as any parent would want to support their child when they are suffering. And Jiya was suffering a lot. That’s my job as a child psychologist, isn’t it? To equip the children to manage stress, to excel, to be good. Except that it’s not. I refuse to collude with a society which is bent on pounding our children into little factories of productivity.

If there was one message or appeal I had for parents (in which I include myself), it would be to Let It Be. Childhood is not a race or a competitive sport. We do not have to bring up perfect children with perfect teeth, perfect grades and perfect behaviour, who stay on “top of things” and are productive. By the way, this is not just a middle-class or elitist, urban problem. The tentacles of hustle culture have spread across regions, ages, class, and cultures. Hurry, rush, push is the name of the new game. No child is spared!

Let it Be is more of a philosophy of life than a parenting style. Recently, there has been much talk of tiger parenting, panda parenting, dolphin parenting, elephant parenting, etc. I am apprehensive that my plea might be packaged, probably as tortoise parenting, to add to the zoo list. It would be hilarious if it was not sad. We are losing faith in our own human wisdom on child rearing and seeking answers in the animal world.

Let it Be philosophy is a refusal to hothouse our children from an early age so that they fit the societal ruts of so-called success. Childhood is not a training ground for adulthood. It is about accepting and respecting that each child is wired and inspired differently. And will grow at their own pace. An interesting observation is that whenever I meet parents or teachers as a collective they always express their dismay at the pressure we put our children under. They recognise how it whittles away their spirit year after year. They rally together and demand that we let children be children and not mini-adults. But in our homes and our classrooms, the hustle culture creeps in on us as we fret over “completing the syllabus”, and have strange ideas of “preparing them for the real world”. We have been recruited into this notion of “not-doing-enough” and we are pushing it down to the next generation. Unwittingly, we have become teeth and claws of the formidable productivity beast that is harming them and us.

If in any way I am giving the impression that children are passively receiving all the hardships that the world is directing their way then let me halt that assumption. They are not metaphorical clay that are being moulded by the harsh hands of this world. They keep responding in tiny and big ways, through visible and invisible actions. Jiya was resisting the pressure of being a perfect child by crying, telling her parents she hated school and that she was feeling sad. Now you might ask, “Isn’t that a problem?” What we label as a problem is the child’s way of responding and letting the adults know that all is not well in their world.

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They do that in so many ways — by becoming quiet, withdrawing, shouting, hitting out, getting angry, running away from home, cutting themselves, crying, not sleeping, not eating, and numbing themselves with drugs. In their restricted power they refuse to follow what is demanded of them — go to school, excel, be polite, behave, etc.

I wanted to understand what Jiya was resisting. When I asked her what was keeping her up at night and making her cry, she stealthily glanced at her parents and said, “I am scared that Mumma Papa will not love me if I don’t get good grades. They will be disappointed in me.” Jiya was protesting an unjust world where children feel that they are loved on the basis of their academic success. Or they are labelled as failures. Her sleepless nights and crying were a testament to what she was scared of losing — the love of her parents. I hope now you understand my refusal to dispense coping skills for anxiety. Instead, I want to stand alongside children and find out what keeps them awake at night and work alongside them, their families, and their schools to change the society that tells a child of eight that their value depends on what they achieve.

My letter is not to blame you. Many of you write to me after reading my column. You resonate with my ideas, and believe we have to come together to do better for our children. I really appreciate the struggles and complexities of bringing up children in the present-day world. Like you, as a parent, I have had sleepless nights and worry-heavy days. My plea is to keep the conversation going, to question the idea of productivity that is robbing our little ones of their childhood. It is not rocket science. It is a position, a resistance and a refusal. And a commitment to Let it Be.

In solidarity

Shelja