Heart upon my sleeve

It started with the Sandy Hook shooting - the turmoil inside. It was like it was fine up to the mantle but the core was on fire. My mind drifted into the thoughts of those little angels, my arms hugged my children a little too often, and my heart reassured myself “Such things are not frequent.” And now with the New Delhi case it starts all over again. How many times can you calm the anger within? How many times can you tell yourself the world is still a safe place? As someone (originally hoaxed as Morgan Freeman’s words) said on FB – “An elementary school! What’s next – the maternity ward?” When someone tells me a Kindergartner saved herself by playing dead when the shooter fired, before I laud her for her instinct I wonder how she thought of that. Should I be teaching this to my little ones too? How? I can’t. If we are telling ourselves “Not just rape, what they did after that was monstrous,” have we reached a point where ‘just’ rape is ok? My mind cooks up a hundred different ...

So many have asked me “How do you manage to move so often?” that I decided I’d write it down so that I would find the answers too. Newton taught us that all physical objects resist change and as humble beings we are no different. So the first phase in any move is always the denial phase . “Thou shalt not move”, is what I rant for the first week. Thankfully I have a husband who thinks differently than what I do and that always helps in getting a new perspective.  And he has a knack of convincing me… always! The second phase is the pandemonium phase when there’s utter chaos in the brain. It’s hard when you have to move. It’s harder when you have to move across countries and continents and it’s still harder when you have to with your children. But the hardest part happens right here in our brains. Should we move? Should we not move? Should my husband move and we not move? Should we move, but later? Should I leave my job (again)? I hate that period of my life – my mind is ...

Subject: Moving from India to US for a second grader (in the middle of the year) -   History:  We moved from India to US once in 2010 when my daughter was in KG. At that time I felt kids in India had more in studies than in India so the move was smooth. Then we moved from US to India in 2011 and my daughter did her 1 st in India. Now we moved again in October this year (talk of 21 st century nomads). My view: I am comparing 5 months of 2 nd grade in India with two months of 2 nd grade in the US. I am comparing 2 nd grade in a good SSC school in Pune with the 2 nd grade in a good public school (rating 9 on GreatSchools) in LA, California. When I moved, I was again under the impression that what my children were learning in school in India was way ahead of what they would be studying in the US. That was what most other moms who had moved back and forth had told me too. But I was shocked to see it the other way round. My daughter went to second grade in a SSC...