BackNew Year Ideas | Be a stay-at-home dad
Plucking roadside weeds with a toddler and being the only father in an otherwise all-mommy group
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Sometimes, feeding the goats is a little tiresome.
Really, how often can you go to a goat pen, pluck roadside weeds—usually moistened by a passing dog—and hand them to your toddler and her friends, so they can feed a herd of ever-hungry goats?
I do it every day at noon after playschool, and I wonder, “How long am I going to do this?" I watch my three-year-old squeal and prance as the five goats follow her friends and her up and down the wire fence. Their smiles are broad, and their mood is buoyant. A soft breeze blows down the lane, through the rain trees and gulmohars, warmed by a winter sun traversing a blue sky, in a season when it is obscured in other cities by grim, grey smog. It is the perfect end to a school day.
I am not alone with the goats. A gaggle of mothers gathers here, opposite the madrasa, around the corner from the playschool on Standage Road, a little lane in Bangalore’s leafy old Cantonment area. I know them well by now, this group of intelligent, sparkling women. We are part of a Whatsapp group, messaging each other to organize play dates, to swap recipes, to meet in the park, to go out for a drink, to find the best place for “trainer pants" that can help toddlers kick the diaper habit when sleeping, to talk about spouses (rarely), to be sounding boards for matters at home and work, and to ask each other if we are meeting today at the goat pen.
I am also the only father on this Whatsapp group, the result of a decision I took nearly three years ago to be a part-time writer and full-time father. At 48, I am also the oldest in the group, populated by mothers in their early 30s and a couple over 40. The group started this year as “Creative Mommies", named after the school, Creative Foundation. When I jokingly pointed out that I, er, wasn’t a mommy, they sportingly changed it to “Creative Parents". There is much I have learnt from this talented, effervescent bunch of women, most of whom do a marvellous job of balancing child-rearing with diverse interests, including managing two branches of a micro-finance organization lending to poor women; co-founding a relationships start-up; working at a tech start-up; working with handmade objects; running a boutique; homeschooling. We are Hindu, Christian and Muslim, sharing cultures, festivals, fears and hopes.
This is why we moved to Bangalore, a city full of dissimilar, accommodative people always doing something new or exciting, or both. There is no better place in India to be a full-time father. My mommy friends accept me freely, and few people express shock or awe at my age or what I do—cook for my family, raise my child (who, on weekends, it must be admitted, cruelly discards me to follow her mother around like a little sheep). My parents live here, a 3-minute walk away, and to watch my mother, her Ajji, sing songs and read my daughter books and laugh when her three-year-old mind tries to cheat my father in musical chairs, is to experience life at its fullest.
These are truly the wonder years. Before we get to the goats, I wait for my daughter at the playschool gate. Every day, every day, she bursts out of class and tries to spot me. When she does, her mouth creases into a huge grin. She finds her snack basket among the others lined up and skips towards me. Mostly, I don’t pick her up. My reasoning is that she must be independent and strong, as soon as she can. Sometimes, my resolve and reason collapse, and I offer her both hands. She grabs them, crouches, and like a little human spring leaps into my arms. She likes to bury her head in my neck and hold me tight.
The day is filled with such moments. When she runs wildly around the house, naked, trying to give everyone “nangu hugs", when she violently splashes around in her bath, when she, hand over hand, confidently swings herself across a parallel bar, like a miniature army commando. Of course, she has meltdowns, when she is tired or hungry or thirsty and does not know it. She is, I have to tell myself, only three years old. From being a discliplinarian and unyielding father the first three years, I have mellowed, learning with much self-control that distraction is the best way of getting my daughter to listen to me.
It’s funny, I often think, it was easier to be the editor of a national newspaper and manage a few hundred employees than manage my feisty little toddler. I also think—I do much of my thinking when she is mucking around in the playground or in her bathtub—that I would never want her to be anything other than feisty. Not in a country that undervalues its girls and expects subservience from them. I taught her early to “push back" if anyone pushed her around, especially boys. At the playground, I am secretly filled with pride when she takes a swipe at a boy harassing her. It helps that a steady dose of eggs, milk, fruits and non-vegetarian food has made her tower over boys her age, often older. I am happy to live out my thoughts through my daughter, as she grows and glows.
And, so, I stand by the goats, talking to my new friends, awkwardly telling my daughter why the big billy goat disappeared after Eid (“he’s now biryani, no?" she says sweetly). When I sigh at the goat routine, one of the mums reminds me that this is but a fleeting period. She asks: “Do you see anyone aged 4 here?" Apparently, by 4, the year of the goats will be history. I’m looking forward to seeing what comes next, but I will miss the goats.
Samar Halarnkar writes the fortnightly column Our Daily Bread.
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