Not Just Daughters Day
I have been wanting to write this one for around 4 months now, but somehow the content looked a little incomplete in my head. Today while the occasion -Daughter’s Day seems good, my previous blog on education has also made a background for this one. Observations of sub conscious mind and habits form an important part of informal education. When I look at daughters of India, I realise that we have mostly been exposing them to duties that a wife has been playing for years. The indoor games that they have been playing from childhood or the way they have been seeing most of the women in their families design their mindset. The shift that has come in career opportunities for women is yet to be reflected strongly in the conversations that happen at home and the way children of the family see their parents. When I was young, I remember playing games where I would be using a false kitchen set to cook food, manage household tasks, play role of teacher to educate my dolls and soft toys and being involved in other tasks/ career options that were exposed to me as part of women’s role.
Today, I do not have many young girls around to draw my observations, but I think there is a shift that needs to be promoted. Our daughters need to be exposed to sports that also involve intense physical strength and make them mentally strong at the same time. They need to be exposed to diverse career options of today’s time. They need to be shown how a woman is not mandatorily required to run the show at home but this is just a skill that comes naturally to most of the women and is one of the responsibilities that they may choose to pick. Children at home need to be made aware of the various crucial role that a woman is playing in the development of society. The young boys of the house need to be more involved in household work and support the female at home, elderly men need to be the role model. It is only when they see mutual sharing of responsibilities that today’s generation would understand that we have past the era of stereotypes based on perceived strength of men and women.
It is for you to decide what is that meaningful gift you want to gift your children every day of their life.
Manisha Dawar