The BUTTON and the LEAKY TAP - A story on equality

A few months ago, one Sunday evening we were hanging out at home. It was unusual, since we are almost never at home on Sunday evenings. We had the company of one of our youth from church and this little controversy started through a rather simple request from Suresh

Suresh: ' Hi Rohini - can you stitch my shirt button?'
Before I could reply, the young girl jumped in.
Girl: ' Why can't you stitch your own button?'
Suresh was taken aback and we realized that we had a budding feminist in our presence. I think he responded something to the effect of  'I dont know how to stitch a button' - which led to further horn locking and comments on why men could not do everything.

We live in an age that is completely confused. We don't have separate roles anymore for men and women and we believe everyone must do everything or at least know to do everything. The term here is equality.
A common argument I hear is how the woman's role is changing in our times. I.e. women are leaving the home to go to work and so men should help out more at home. But are they helping out more at home?
The button request conversation made me realize that there were things that my husband could not do on his own. And .... it made me happy.
Marriage is not about equality. If we were two equal individuals, who could do everything on our own, we would not need each other. The word 'need' is very important in marriage. If we do  not 'need' each other then it would be like roommates with kids :)
As I thought further into the 'button'  conversation, I realized there were many things I could not do on my own! Like fix a LEAKY TAP! Or even simpler things like unscrew a bottle lid. I could get someone to fix it like a plumber - and Suresh could get someone to stitch his button.
But just the fact that I had a person who asked me for help and I could go to the person for help, made me realize the joy of inequality.
We frequently talk about men having brute strength and women having emotional strength. That is the beauty of inequality in marriage.
We recently attended a marriage seminar and were asked to describe our marriage. Suresh described ours as a three-legged race. Clumsy, but holding on to each other!

Marriage is not about equally dividing responsibility. Marriage is about sharing responsibility.
Marriage is not about who makes the Tea. Marriage is about making Tea for someone and having someone you can ask to make Tea for you.
Marriage is not about about who brings home the pay check. Marriage is about taking the decisions together on how that money is spent.
Marriage is not about who stitches the button - but also who is willing to ask for the the button to be stitched and who is willing to stitch the button :)

Buying my First car!

I could say, I was born with a silver spoon. But it seemed that sometime around the age of 22, I spat out the spoon and decided to try my foot with the regular steel spoon in the real world.

One interesting journey I had was the buying of a car.
As someone born with a silver spoon, you would think I had a car or a bike or some mode of transportation of my own in Amchi Mumbai. Oh No! Amchi Mumbai is famous for its excellent public transportation and phenomenal connectivity. I also had a dad who had not grown with a silver spoon and at least to some extent chose not to spoil his two daughters with his riches. And so when we were taken out of the school bus system, which was around 11 years of age for me, we had to travel by the Bus no # 214 of the famous Bombay Muncipal Corportation.

I remember during the Bandra fair, which happened close to our place, the #214 never came close to our house and so after a long day at school we would have to walk the last 1 km! Of course we didn't dare complain as both dad and mom would pop out the story on how they had to walk all the way and sometimes had to walk 2-3 hrs to get to school. Now that I think of it, I don't think their bags were heavy - but I still dare not argue.

When we started going to college which was further away from home, it was bus -rail - walk.
Even after I learned to drive at 18, I was rarely given the car. I was allowed to drive only if dad or mom were in the car. I remember once, nervously, asking dad for the car to go for tuition. But that was the max I would dare. There was no way that I could even think about asking for the car to go for a movie with friends or even to a friends house. All those 'extra-curricular' activities had to be done on bus-rail-walk mode.

When I landed in the US, a car was the least of my interest as I struggled with the cold weather and poor academic understanding. But right after the end of our first term, a friend of ours offered to sell his car as he was buying another one. Suresh and I were friends at this point and decided we had just about enough money to buy a car and we would pool in the cost of the car, fuel and insurance. It seemed like a good deal till we crashed the car - A whole another blog on the crash - COMING SOON.


Once we had got our confidence back and I had made a few extra bucks at the summer job volunteering at the Greek festival, we got back into the task of car hunting again. Our budget was ~$2000. That was it! And that was all we could afford. We spent days looking for a car. Something that actually worked! It was hard but we finally found this perfectly cute Red Honda Civic! Cost $2000.

Perfect it fitted in out budget. The man who was selling it to us, was a good talker. And we were newbies! He told us the car was perfect and that he would take us to a mechanic.
Never for a moment did we think anyone would cheat us! I mean why would they cheat us! We were nice people! So they had got to be nice people! NAIVE!
The car seller did all the ground work for us. He took us to a mechanic who he knew! ALERT! ALERT! Then once this ' good' mechanic approved the car, he took us to the DMV and got all the paper transferred to our name, took the cheque for $2000 and that was it!
We probably drove the car about 10 miles, maybe less than it  and it stopped. Our very first day on our wonderful car, bought with our hard earned money and we were pushing it to a parking spot just so we would not get a parking ticket!
We drove around the car for about 4-6 months. If you dont believe that an inanimate object can harass you, try buying a car that does not work too well! The car harassed us each and every day! It stopped at random places. It refused to start in the middle of the interstate. It cost us a lot of money in repairs.

Finally we sold it off for about $200 - just happy to get rid of it. The 'nice' mechanic who bought it also made a ton of money off us in repairs before he 'advised' us to sell the car.
The scar of this car buying was very deep. So deep that for the next 3 years we did not look at another car. Even when we had a little savings in the bank, we chose to stick with using public transportation and doing groceries on the cycle and carrying them in a haversack back home.

Finally in 2004, after I had returned from an internship and Suresh had a part time internship still going, we ventured into car buying again!
Just as we finished paying for the car in installments, we happened to take a course on Financial Peace by Dave Ramsey.
http://www.daveramsey.com/blog/how-teens-can-buy-their-own-cars/
This was about the time I was almost 9 months pregnant! I think Isaac and Ziva will have Dave Ramsey and our own personal experience with car buying to thank when they get their license and are refused their own vehicle.

For those of you who had your parents buy you your first vehicle, be thankful! For those parents contemplating on buying your kids a vehicle! STOP - It wont kill them to ride public transport! They may even learn a few lessons on money management.

The advantages of becoming a PARENT!

I have seen several articles about how it is beneficial to have children. But I dont think I have seen anyone talk about the benefits of turning into parents. If you think its one and the same thing, think again. Having children is not the same as becoming a parent!
We live in a generation where people think a hundred times before having children. There is a lot of fear associated with it. Stability, maturity, responsibility and of course the key one Independence, all of these go out of sync! Yet in the previous generation no one gave it a second thought. It seemed like a routine of life. Like you went to school when you grew up, so you had children after you got married.
Highlight: Marriages lasted a lot longer in that generation. The women of that generation seemed content and the men never really had severe health issues till they hit their late 50's.
But forget the previous generation or even everyone around, when I look at myself, I see a tremendous change in me since I have become a parent. Not since I had a child! But since I became a Parent.

Emotional ecosystem: I used to really only think about myself. I know, selfish right!  But becoming a parent, I realized that there was someone who depended on me entirely. I had to think about the world beyond me. My emotional ecosystem started to expand to include strangers I never would have spoken to otherwise. I started to care about the mother who had a baby in her car seat in the next car while I was driving mine. I started to show sympathy to the father who had to handle the tantrums of his child in the shopping mall. I willingly let families with little children step in front of me in a line either at the grocery store or while paying bills.
While we think we become an emotional nutcase, we are actually forming a better world through our caring new nature in the role of  PARENT. 

Mega-Maturity: If you think you are not mature, become a parent. All kinds of maturity starts squirting out of your ears and noes. No! Not the kind that causes you to talk about politics or the civil system. But the kind people call 6th sense. Your maturity increases in the safety of your child and family. Your maturity increases as you make purchases. You maturity increases as you start saving up for a future.
Its almost like you gain a super-power called Maturity!

From Junkier to Healthier: While there are times when I think I am going to have a heart-attack watching my children jump from the swing, becoming a parent definitely caused me to become healthier. For one thing  I know I need more energy and that does not come from lazing around. I realized that the more I exercise the more I  had energy to keep up with the munchkin. As I became a parent, I started obsessing about if the kids were eating a balanced diet. As a result the table was filled only with healthy balanced products. Colas were less frequent and boiled broccoli came up more often.

Freakish Financial Freedom: As a single person or even when we were married and without kids, I never thought about more than the immediate need. We literally splurged all our money every month. We saved up for immediate usage. If I need a car -- I saved up and usually spent more than what I saved in the knowledge that I would not burden anyone or that I could pay it off in a month or two.  But after becoming a parent, I started thinking of long terms plans. Not just buying a house, but paying it off completely! I was saving for retirement. I was putting aside money in a group called 'emergency funds'. I had health and life insurance. I thought about investment in mutual funds that pulled a chunk of money that pinched every year! But at the end of it we were never living from month to month and always had money stuck in little pockets (well Accounts really) that could be pulled out in an urgent situation.

Rabidly Responsible: I remember loving to drive my car to 'Empty' tank and I even remember having to call my DH to bring gas over! I never do that anymore. With two kids in the car, I am constantly watching petrol tank to make sure I am stocked for my drive away from home and back! I did not just buy a car, I made every effort to maintain it. That's not love for my car that's called being a responsible parents. Since becoming a parent, I pay my bill ahead of time not on the last date, I have a well stocked kitchen and pantry and my refrigerator always has butter to whip up cakes and brownies. This not only makes me a responsible parent but also a great host, who always has brownies warm and ready!

Most of us parents think we are doing a favor by raising our kids but if you actually look at all the above we have a lot to be thankful for becoming parents - something that would not be possible without our little munchkins!