Time Passages

Of late, Shilpa and I have been arguing a lot. Our arguments have been about one thing, and one thing only… FOOD! Quality, quantity and rate of consumption. I think she eats too slowly, too little, and not enough of the right stuff. She, on the other hand, wonders why fruit roll-ups don’t count as fruit. Of course, I mention only for context that she is six and I am, well, a little older than that.

The pattern is usually the same – Divya and I call Shilpa for dinner, to which her guarded, exploratory response is “So what am I having for dinner?”. A response of “Mac & Cheese” elicits whooping cries of joy, but most other responses typically initiate a litany of groans, moans, whines and squeaks. Once at the table, my modus operandi tends to be even more predictable, consisting of four distinct phases:

1. Sucking Up: “Great job, Shilpa! You’re doing so well, eating so quickly! We’re so proud of you!”
2. Plea Bargaining: “Please baby, eat up quick so we can go read a bedtime story / watch Boston on YouTube / watch REM on YouTube / eat dessert / read two bedtime stories. Just eleven more spoonfuls, pleeease?”
3. Spreading FUD: “How can you grow strong enough to be a gymnast if you don’t eat your spinach? Yes, to be a good guitarist you have to eat your veggies. If you don’t want your bones to be weak you better eat the yoghurt.”
4. Brute Force: “Next spoonful, NOW! I’m turning on the timer, NOW! Seven more spoonfuls, NOW!”

On most nights I enact all four stages of coercion, but the ending is almost always the same – Shilpa mad, me madder, dinner still uneaten.

Today was no different – I was drained from the histrionics of our dinner theater, and Shilpa as usual had tuned out my soapbox antics. By the time I told her I was done arguing and she was free to leave the table, she really had had enough. And left – went upstairs to bed without so much as a backward glance; no “I’m sorry, Dad”, just an implied “see ya”. I guess I don’t blame her – I had had enough of me too. But I was still mad.

And so I sat in my office, listening to recordings of her as a four year old, singing nursery rhymes and songs from our time in India. You know, the usual self indulgent, self pitying journey down memory lane, mourning “the little girl who was now all grown up”.

And thankfully, today I was dealt a strong blow, upside the head, by The Obvious. True, she was all grown up, and yes I was concerned about her eating habits but that wasn’t entirely what this was about. What I was really mad about was that I could no longer get her to do what I wanted, that I could no longer “time-out” her into submission. This was about Shilpa marking her boundaries, her independence, and letting me know what she was going to do.

I reeled back – this was so obvious. I could no longer pay lip service to “treating her like an adult” – I had to actually do it. And more ominously, if this was going to be my reaction to a bowl of uneaten yoghurt, rice and potatoes, what kind of beast was I going to be when things got more interesting – clothing choices, strange hair styles, maybe body piercings, parties, boys…BOYS??

No, I don’t think I am ready to face that future. Not quite yet. I need more time. In fact, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll head right back to my office, to don those headphones and listen to a four year old sing Itsy Bitsy Spider in Hindi – this ostrich isn’t ready to get his head out of the sand.