American Individualism
Many years ago, on one of our visits to the United States, we stayed with a family friend in Richmond, Virginia. The Mukherjees had two daughters, Gargi and Puja, about ten and eight years old. We had a great time in their house and though not extremely friendly, my son found playmates to run around with in the garden, dive in the swimming pool and participate in other children’s activities.
On the day we were leaving, all of them came to the airport to see us off. In a very casual manner, I told the two girls that we will probably be back next year so they can play and have fun together again. The elder one kept quiet but the younger one gave a candid reply: “No Mashi, please don’t come again. You know if you come, Daddy asks me to vacate my room for you and I have to go and share Didi’s room. I don’t like that. So just don’t come.” This American child’s statement had left me pondering about how children were so conscious about their individual space right from their young days.
On another trip a couple of years later, I went to visit my cousin who lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Jhara and her husband lived in a decent two bedroom apartment along with their six or seven-year-old son Arjune. After a hectic trip to Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon, travelling by the overnight Greyhound bus, we were terribly tired when we reached their home early on a Thursday morning. Jhara’s husband picked us up from the bus station and when we reached their house, my cousin was busy preparing to leave for work. She quickly showed me to her son’s room, which was full of as many soft toys as one could imagine, and asked us to rest there till she came back from work. She apologised for not having a spare guest room and asked us to accommodate ourselves there.
When little Arjune came home from school in the afternoon he was thrilled to find new guests in his house. He soon became very friendly with my husband, his new found Dadu. But what excited him even more was that he was going to sleep on the floor in his parent’s bedroom in a sort of makeshift tent in one corner. It was like summer camp, his mother had told him, and his joy knew no bounds.
We spent the next few days in a very relaxed manner. Over the weekend we drove to see all the nearby places, dined in Indian restaurants where fake Indian curries were very popular, and for the rest of the free time just sat down to chat about people and things at home in India and also rehash some memories of our childhood days.
Soon it was time for the usual Monday morning blues. While Jhara was busy preparing Arjune for school and we were still lazing in bed, I heard Arjune say, “Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Mummy, you said they will stay with us for four days. It is Monday today. Why are they still here? When will they leave?”
As Jhara tried to hush him up and explained to him that we should not ask guests to leave, I felt bad that we had actually made the poor child move out of his room, away from his toys and his own space. It was our fault and we should leave as early as possible.
These are not stray incidents taking place over the years. History repeated itself once again. This time it was my grandson. Anando has just completed four years and his fifth birthday was only celebrated last month. My husband and I have been visiting their house since he was born and each December he has been making his annual visit to Kolkata along with his parents. So we have been seeing each other regularly every six to eight months each year, more or less. We were not strangers but his grandparents, his ‘Dado’ and ‘Thummy.’ Though he was not as fond of me as he was of his Dado, he would sometimes try to be friendly with me when he needed his cookies in the morning. The rest of the time he stayed away because I was a strict disciplinarian and like all American kids, he had never heard the word ‘No’, even from his parents. You just can’t say, “Don’t do that.” You will have to be polite and say, “Can we not do that or what about doing something else?” One day he even told me, “I don’t love you. You are rude.” I was constantly telling his parents how they were spoiling him too much but apparently I was old-fashioned and obviously didn’t know the American way of bringing up children.
Last year after we left for India, we heard that Anando was really sad and had even cried a few times. He was three, could speak a few sentences coherently, and every evening when he came home from day care, he would run upstairs to our bedroom to check whether we were there or not. Then he would ask the obvious question to his mother, “Where have Dado and Thummy gone? When will they be back?” After he repeated this for a week and his mother kept on telling him that they had gone back home to Kolkata, which was far away, he finally said, “Then let’s go to the airport. We will fly on the aeroplane and bring them back.” I was so depressed to hear the poor boy’s story.
This year Anando came with his father to the airport to receive us. He was so happy, gave us a hug and sat in his car seat. As soon as we started, the first thing he asked was, “How long are you going to stay?”
My son replied, “They will be with us for two months.”
Anando was a bit confused. How long was two months? So his father explained that it was sixty days. He knew how to count from one to hundred so he started counting to sixty. I then told him, “Bhai, it is not sixty. Actually we will be staying for seventy days.”
“OK, seventy days?” he started counting once again.
We came home and settled down. The room that had earlier been the study had been partially converted into a child’s bedroom with a bed, books, toys, crayons, and painting supplies. Several pictures of Anando had been hung on the wall to make him feel at home. His mother was trying to make him feel it was his own space and now that he was a big boy he would no longer sleep with them. But for the boy it was his ‘art bed’ and ‘art room’ and every morning, as soon as he woke up, he would spread sheets of paper on that bed and draw multicoloured pictures. But he would not sleep there.
The next morning when he woke up, he came straight into the room. His daddy usually worked on the computer at the desk but instead of finding him, he found me sitting there. “Hello, good morning bhai. Come give Thummy a hug.”
“No,” he shouted with a frowning face. “Go back home!”
At first I couldn’t understand why he said such a thing but when he continued doing that for over a week, I thought something was wrong.
“Why, bhai? Don’t you want me to stay with you?” At first he said, “No” then added, “OK, you can stay for seventy days and then go back.”
His mother tried to explain to him that we were his daddy’s mummy and daddy so he shouldn’t be rude and ask us to go away.
So the next morning he came and said, “All right you can stay for seventy-one or seventy-two days, but not more.”
I tried to pull his leg and said, “Why seventy-one or seventy-two days? We are thinking of staying longer.”
The following morning he entered the room and asked me directly, “Are you going to stay here forever?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“No, you can’t stay forever. Then the roof of this room will fall down on your head. Go back home.”
His mother kept on brushing off his statements as child’s babble but I was really worried. Why did he behave like this?
Last evening Anando sat at the dining table doing his homework. His school teacher had sent a few sheets of paper where the child had to write his name on the top and then draw all things related to himself. The child loves to draw and he kept on filling the pages quickly. When it came to the page titled ‘My Family’, he drew his own picture in the centre with his mummy and daddy on both sides of him. “Draw Dado and Thummy too,” his mother told him.
“No, I won’t draw them. They are not family,” was the reply.
His mother looked up at me and said, “Ma, please don’t mind. This is what they teach them in school. Family means only the child with his mom and papa.”
This morning when Anando was in a jovial mood he drew a picture of his house with him and his parents standing outside it. He was trying to be as realistic as possible. The sun was shining from the blue sky above, and the grass in the garden was also green. His daddy’s black T-shirt and his glasses and his mummy’s striped dress, her curly hair, his own rainbow-coloured shirt and his sneakers were all painted with as much perfection as possible. Sensing his good mood I told him, “Bhai, where is Dado and Thummy? Why don’t you add them to the picture?”
For the first time he didn’t seem to revolt. He moved the picture aside and quickly brought out a fresh sheet of paper. He drew the house once again and gave it to me.
“But where are Dado and Thummy? Draw their pictures too.”
His answer surprised us.
“Actually they are inside the house so you can’t see them.”
Oh, poor invisible grandparents!
I just kept on pondering. Here was a child, just five years old. He still needed his Dado to sit next to him while he watched his cartoons downstairs because he was afraid to be alone. Though he didn’t like to come near me, at least he has now stopped counting the days and telling me to go away. For decades I have been teaching my students about American individualism. So was this a manifestation of that?