28 jan 2012
Little Priyadarshini is the image of an angel but ask her to share her chocolate and she glares at you. Even her granny doesn't get a teeny-weeny bite from the bar. Amid her peers, Priyadarshini acts bossy and demands to be the winner in all the games. She is rude, stubborn and turns into a ball of fury if you deny her something.
"She is spoiled and my daughter knows it," says the child's grandmother, Anubha, a retired schoolteacher. Priyadarshini is living with her grandparents because her mother, Mallika, is working in Singapore. "Try denying her a toy or an ice-cream, you will face a tempest of howling. As a child Mallika never dared ask for expensive stuff. But now she defends her daughter all the time," sighs the girl's grandfather, Santanu, a former professor with City College.
"We keep telling our daughter it is useless buying such expensive toys. Kids are just as happy with pens, pencils, empty boxes, pillows, provided they are oriented that way," Santanu says. He is rudely interrupted by Priyadarshini, who screams: "Why can't I sleep in my own room?" The interior of her grandparents' room is not remotely like her own dream den that is done up in Barbie Pink theme.
The guilt factor
Clearly, Mallika isn't convinced. Guilt has the better of her. "My husband and I have demanding careers. We feel so bad for the child. Anyway, I have read books on spoiled children growing up to be very sensible adults," says Mallika. She is pensive the very next moment: "Every parent wants the best for her child. Sometimes we can't give the best of ourselves. So we end up giving the best in the shopping malls," she sighs.
Take the case of Anajali Singhania, an ad professional and forever on the move. "I know I am not spending enough time with Myra. So I compensate by buying her clothes and gadgets," says Anjali.
Technological advances and exposure are the other reasons that are spoiling her seven-year-old daughter, she feels. There are many like her who don't know what to do and feel obligated to meet their kids' demands. With each new fad, comes a "must have" item for Myra. Parents are forced to give in knowing too well that these "must haves" will be collecting dust in a day. Among them is the more sensible Moon Moon Roy Chowdhury, who consciously tries to strike a balance between the real and the material. Son Raunak has been gifted with a play station by his father Uddalok, who finds the console a good way of bonding with his son. "But I keep telling them both, that a bicycle or a book are better things to spend time with," says Moon Moon.
Spoiled, says who?
For most parents, "the best" includes a safe environment, warm meals and a great education. For a privileged few it may also include fancy gadgets. These ridiculously expensive kids' toys seem to have taken child up-bringing to a whole new level - a well-known one called Spoiled. The "lop-sided" logic leaves Sonam and Abhishek Khanna, who run a family business of fashion jewellery at Dubai, London and Singapore and own a plush apartment on Belvedere Road, nonchalant.
"We earn to meet the needs of our children. The needs of a Gen-X kid is different. Instead of saying 'no', they must be told 'yes' again and again. That's a good way of showing you care," asserts Abhishek.
Daughter Soha, in sixth standard of a top missionary school in Kolkata, mostly lives with a house full of helps and a dependent relative who is but a mute spectator to the Soha's lavish lifestyle: A 55-inch LED television, equipped with the latest gaming console, an Apple laptop (worth Rs 1 lakh) which her parents gave her on her 11th birthday, her wall unit fitted with Bose speakers (costing Rs 1.5 lakh) plugged to an iPod, a Samsung Galaxy cellphone (Rs 35,000) and a doll's house (Rs 35,000). Soha is more attached to her playthings (she keeps updating, discarding and replacing them with new ones) than her parents.
Little bosses
Soha spends her day scolding her two nannies or arguing with them like a pint-sized lawyer, confided the live-in relative: "Once she screamed at her mom and dad when they went to a movie without her, prompting frantic calls from her babysitters that sent her parents scurrying home. She had called Sonam 'a terrible mother' recently, when she failed to get her the Wedding Fantasy Barbie doll on her way back home." The latest Barbie edition is dressed as a bride, resplendent in a beautiful traditional ghagra-choli. The cost: Rs 1,614 'only'. She also wants her parents to use the latest Barbie too-brush. Then there is Akshay Dewan, always loaded with rich stuff. He knows that a job well done will always translate into receiving gifts. "I think if I do my work on time I should be getting something in return," quips the youngster. His parents, Megha and Aditya boast about his impeccable behaviour hardly aware that he turns aggressive when refused a reward.
There is a 15% rise in cases where young adults are emotionally and financially bankrupting parents. Earlier, two or three such patients would see a doctor in a month. Now, psychologists need to counsel around 15 kids for misbehaviour and can easily trace the root cause to opulence and indulgence. Kolkata, the city of middle-class values, is fast catching up to a trend that was synonymous with the other metros.
Grandma's recipe
Instead of rushing to a psychologist or logging on to the internet for solutions, just follow good ol' grandma's recipe. "My son and daughter-in-law are spoiling their kids thinking they are dedicating time to them," says Meena Bihani, grandmother of twins, Rachita and Rachna. "So instead of teaching the little ones, I have started counselling my son." Meena's son and his wife are IT professionals and travel a lot. The kids have iPods plugged in and eyes fixed on the latest Macbook Air laptops that they got for their 15th birthday. "I think the adults are letting their children control their lives less than they used to," says the septuagenarian. It's time we all realized that a child who controls parents is actually out of control.
