Indians stop being nosy please! #indianparenting

This post is a vent to a very recent (early morning today) incident I had to face with another Indian parent at school. And I stress Indian for a reason. Today was a drop in session at school. During such sessions, parents are invited to visit their child’s class and have a look at their work while the class work is in progress. Usually, you get to see their books, what their current topic is and the writing/math work they do.

Now the usual ethics and attitude that the firang people follow is that they are only concerned with their child’s progress. They won’t ask you nosy/irritating questions about your or any other’s child. Unless of course there is some altercation going on between the kids. Now, my son was the only Indian/Asian kid in his class of 30 until another Indian boy joined in last year. So today this boy’s mother came along for the drop in session too. All parents were at their kid’s desk going through their books. This lady, after looking at her son’s books, came over towards me where I was standing and watching S do his work. Ignoring me, she sits down next to him and asks him whether she can look at his book. I was SO SO appalled!

First of all why the hell does she want to look at my son’s books? Second of all, when am standing right there (an adult AND the kid’s mother) why doesn’t she ask me whether she can look at his book?? And last, why in the world do want to see and THEN of course compare your child’s work with mine?

I am so frustrated and exhausted with this typical Indian mentality of parents comparing their kid with other kids. It is always about competition. What classes your kid goes to? What clubs he has joined. Then they send their kids to the same classes and start comparing grades. I remember in school, while my dad was busy scolding me for the wrong answers in the paper, other parents were busy comparing papers and arguing with the teacher about “giving more marks to this child and that and not giving marks to their kid even if he had written the same answer”. What rubbish!

In a class of 30 kids, what are you going to achieve by comparing notebooks? To think in terms of success. To think in terms of comparison. And I have experienced this mentality only in Indian parents. As soon as this boy joined school, all his mother asked me was if I had enrolled S in a zillion classes, does he know how to read and write in his mother tongue.

This is the first time I have experienced this nonsense and I am glad that the other 28 kids are not Indians. The exasperation I tell you! All these conversations irritate me and intimidate me. I don’t give a shit whether my son is the best in his class or in the school. I am happy he has friends, he can talk confidently and is generally a bubbly easy going boy and I know when and how and more importantly in which areas to push him for this own betterment.

I hope she is feeling better about herself! after comparing her kid with ONE other Indian kid.

How do you make such parents keep their noses in their own  business??

-A frustrated mom