Samina MishraFeb 24, 2025 12:16 IST First published on: Feb 24, 2025 at 12:16 ISTShareThis month brought the sad news of two young boys dying in Ashoka University – according to reports, one by suicide and the other for which the cause is still to be confirmed. The signs of a mental-health crisis among the young have been around for a while but we still don’t seem to have understood what is going on or how we can help. I am wary of giving parenting advice because each child is different and like everything else, it is contextual. Parenting today is often a lonely and isolating journey because in the last few decades, the burden of child-rearing has been placed solely on parents in the nuclear family. But, raising children has never been just the responsibility of parents. To raise a child is to facilitate a process of knowing the self and building a relationship with the world. This requires all of us to think about how we imagine the world, ourselves and others in our lives.To speak of my experience of raising a boy requires that I preface it with the privilege of class, of having supportive family close by, of having friends whose presence in my son’s life showed that there is more than one way of being in the world. This enabled many choices that have contributed to the way he inhabits the world. At 32, I became a mother to a boy with a mixed Hindu-Muslim parentage. This context forced me to ask questions like what would be the child’s religion, what cultural legacy would his name draw from, how would the world respond to these choices, what inner resources would he need to be in the world. Questions like these are ones that we all need to address as we grow into the world but in most families, they rarely come up. It may seem unnecessary, and easier to unquestioningly follow customs that have been handed down, the texture of a cultural fabric we want to pass on to our children. But my context pushed me to think about these questions more deeply.Story continues below this adWhen my son was in Grade II, his first name brought him the attention that many Muslim children across the country face – a classmate told him that all Muslims were terrorists. This meant that I had to talk to my son about the world and how it is intertwined with the personal. It meant that I had to talk to him about his feelings, my feelings. It also meant conversations with the school. I don’t know if the conversations changed anything but I know that the two boys continued to talk and play together in school. This is life – contradictory, mixed-up, inconsistent. Rarely do we acknowledge that to children, rarely do we say to them that we don’t have answers, that we don’t know what to do with our feelings, and that talking together may be a way to find out.My parenting journey taught me that one constantly discovers things, both about the child and about oneself that are not always palatable. For all my rejection of autocracy, as a parent I have found myself wanting to say “Because I say so!” and have my will be done. Fortunately, my little boy and others in my life challenged me, forcing me to think about what I wanted and what I was doing. That’s a big lesson — that our desires are not always pure and noble, and our actions do not always have to ride on them. Our inner lives are complex and while they are intertwined with our outer selves, they are also different. Recognising our desires does not automatically mean that we act on them but repressing them can certainly lead to twisted behaviour. So, can we speak of the inner life in ways that deepen our understanding of ourselves and of the relationships we want to build? Can we acknowledge to ourselves that negative emotions do arise in us – when we desire success at something but see someone else get it, or when we develop a crush on someone but they don’t reciprocate our feelings? Base feelings can arise in us but they do not have to translate into hurtful behaviour.To acknowledge the inner self is not just a private act by an individual. It also requires recognition by others, the need to have someone in our life who asks us — “Where does it hurt?” In a world that is so focussed on how we appear, do we ask little boys this question enough? Boys continue to be told to think of the outside — “boys don’t cry”, “don’t be a sissy”. And once they turn into teenagers, that awkward voice-breaking, hair-sprouting, puppy-fat-and-pimples phase gives rise to so much anxiety about finding perfection. But the truth is, there is no ideal, no perfect picture, and setting that up for any relationship creates a fertile ground for stress and toxicity.Story continues below this adThe teen years were difficult for us too. But the difficult years were also the time to practise our speaking together. We didn’t always listen to each other but we tried, we were not always successful but we didn’t stop. Sometimes we spoke in words, sometimes in hugs, in food, in movie watching – because, of course, talking breaks down in relationships. But I think my son and I continue to strive towards it, to return to talking because we have laid the foundation of speaking about feelings. There are instances in each life when hurt does not go away. It is my hope that then too this foundation will enable him to reach out to someone who can walk with him as he finds his way of living with it.Mishra is a documentary filmmaker, writer and teacher