Jan 28, 2023 07:13 PM IST

My Family and Other Globalizers | Travel - before and after having kids

If you thought a plane ride away from the kids would be the answer to sleepless nights and wolfed down meals...

My Family and Other Globalizers | Battle cry of the global Indian mom: when in doubt, take them out

How to get the kids to leave their rooms (and video games), to experience the world.

My Family and Other Globalizers | What no one tells us about parenting - seriously

The future of human procreation probably depends on the omission of certain choice details. But your columnist is a journalist devoted to the truth.

My Family and Other Globalizers | Enjoy being bad at new things, and more tips for 40 somethings

Things to do in middle age, once the insecurities and overwrought emotions of youth have been navigated, and worries about universities and jobs are mostly in the rearview.

My Family and Other Globalizers | How not to make young children self-sufficient

The availability of more adult hands to help out with kids in India also means that there is generally less urgency in pushing children to be independent.

My Family and Other Globalizers | Let's talk about sex

Our kids live in an overly sexualized environment. An open line to conversations about sex, relationships, and emotions with the parents is important.

My Family and Other Globalizers | How did our moms do it?

Did our mothers feel less guilty in an information-lean world? Will our children have more information in the future and find us wanting as parents?

My Family And Other Globalizers | Talking to the kids about cancer

What is the proper comportment to adopt when breaking the news of serious illness to one’s children?

My Family and Other Globalizers | Landlines made us more social; mobile phones, more forgetful

It was the family landline that helped me, and countless others, become adept at the artifice that is so much part of social life.

Kingdom of the Sick: Breast cancer and me

My Family and Other Globalizers | Parenting nightmare: Losing the kids

Because learning about parenting failures can be more useful than parenting tips. The former are balm for guilt; the latter only stoke the flames of self-recrimination.

My Family and Other Globalizers | Perks of being a parent

One of the greatest uses of kids: giving parents common ground when life would otherwise pull them in different directions.

My Family and Other Globalizers | Shrinking the confidence gap

Women need more practice at valuing themselves more, and perhaps men could tone down their tendency to self-promotion a tad, too.

My Family and Other Globalizers | The trickster called time

In the end, you have your kids on borrowed time and it passes in as achingly beautiful a moment as a sunrise.

My Family and Other Globalizers | Happy Teacher’s Day to all teachers, past and present

Teachers might come in a bouquet of colours - good, bad and ugly - but what they have in common is that they act as surrogate parents for huge swathes of most young people’s lives.

My Family and Other Globalizers | Mommy wars and the politics of "choice feminism"

Though “choice” is an important part of empowerment, “choice feminism”, or the idea that any choice a woman makes is a feminist one simply because it is chosen, is quite absurd.

My Family and Other Globalizers | The problem with favourite things

Sorting gives little ones a way to group their thoughts, process information, store and retrieve ideas, and describe items. But it has limitations.

My Family and Other Globalizers | How to talk to kids about India and Independence Day

As Independence Day rolls around, I sit with the children and tell them about India’s inspirational freedom struggle. Stories are how we all make sense of the world.

My Family and Other Globalizers | Announcing your pregnancy to your boss

A dreaded moment that I’d hitherto been putting off, was now nigh. I needed to inform my boss that his star reporter was now about to become a... drumroll… mother. It felt like a confession.

My Family and Other Globalizers | The pregnancy diet

The expecting woman is stuck in a quagmire of less-than-scientifically-robust advice about what she should be denying herself - coffee, sushi, massages, swimming...

My Family and Other Globalizers | Baby, breast, bottle

Breastfeeding was a lesson in humility for me. I was used to getting my way. Until I had a baby and my breasts refused to obey.

My Family and Other Globalizers | Let there be music

Time and again, music has stood in for love when words failed, soothed hurts - physical and emotional - and been the glue when cracks appeared in family life.

My Family and Other Globalizers | On the other side of working mom guilt

No one can have it all. But everyone can have different bits and bobs of “all” at different points in their lives. What’s important is the arch of one’s life.

My Family and Other Globalizers | Birthdays in three time zones

Caterers were interviewed, alternative entertainers weighed for months, and professional photographers were de rigueur...

My Family and Other Globalizers | Decoupling value from money alone

Non-financially remunerated work, like that undertaken by stay-at-home parents, is devalued, regardless of how critical for the functioning of society it may be.