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Photo: Murali Kumar K.

Two-in-one Sandhya is both Rasika’s friend and mother

Britney Spears’ wild ways have been attributed to her mother. Lindsay Lohan’s disastrous last year is supposed to be because her mother was more of a friend than a parent. Are mums in India also following the same path? Bharatanatya dancer Sandhya Kiran has no interest in social networking sites. She, however, pretends to be fascinated when her 14-year-old daughter, Rasika takes Sandhya through her profile on one of these sites. Though she doesn’t relate to anything there, Sandhya patiently listens to her daughter’s tales of the new friends she has made and old ones she has discovered. Sandhya does it to encourage Rasika to share everything with her as a friend. And in the process, as a parent, she also manages to keep a check on her.

“Since Rasika is my only child, I try to involve her in everything so that she doesn’t feel lonely and doesn’t have to look elsewhere for comfort. . But that doesn’t mean she is allowed to run wild. I noticed that Rasika was constantly going out for lunch with her friends. One day, when she wanted to go out again for lunch with friends, I didn’t allow her to.”

Sandhya constantly shuffles between the roles of a mother and a friend. “We talk about everything. There are issues on which we don’t see eye to eye. We, however, bond well over dance. We discuss like friends but it doesn’t mean that Rasika won’t be told that this is right and this is not,” adds Sandhya.

Filmmaker Kavita Lankesh’s daughter is just four years old but Kavita has already started treading the thin line between being a mother and a friend carefully. “We connect really well over reading and enact scenes from stories. We have a good time together. She creates a fuss with my sister and mother on certain things but when I am around, she listens to me. I have seen so many mothers trying to be friends with their children and things not working out in the end. If parents try to be friends with their children, then who will be the parent?” asks Kavita.

But not everybody echoes Kavita’s sentiments. Counsellor Ali Khwaja who heads Banjara Academy has noticed that of late, Indian moms too have been trying to be pals with their children.

“In a particular case, a husband was very short tempered. He would often abuse his wife. The wife got used to this. She was friendly with the son and would ignore the child’s mistakes and protect him from father’s anger. What she did not realise was that the child was observing the father. And now, the child has started using the same foul language and abuses the mother. She is shocked but I told her she had it coming,” says Khwaja.

Many mothers try to protect their children from their father’s ire. Some working mothers try to compensate for spending little time with their children by being soft on them. “It is one thing to be a friend and another to be a conspirator. Being friends with your children doesn’t mean you hide their mistakes. It means that you should be able to talk about everything under the sun,” says Khwaja.

While raising her daughter Lakshmi, danseuse Padmini Ravi didn’t conform to the typical ways of disciplining her. “You have to draw a very definite line of love and trust but it has to be without authority and command. Your teenage daughter wants to go out at night with her friends and if you don’t allow her, then she will lie to you, and still go out. You just tell her the pros and cons and let her take the call,” says Ravi.

As compared to fathers, mothers have always shared a more friendly relation with their children.

Veteran Kathak guru Maya Rao let her daughter Madhu burn her fingers and learn from experience. “My mother was a perfect balance of friend, confidant and parent. I was a teenager, ready to rebel. And that was encouraged. I was given the freedom to make choices and find out for myself what suited me best. And I have turned out just fine,” says Madhu Nataraj, a Kathak dancer. The mother-daughter duo shop together and are best travel companions. Every year they save money to go somewhere out of country together.

Indian moms haven’t gone to any extremes. Taking a cue from tradition and blending it with modern times, they are struggling to shuffle between the roles of a friend and a parent. Too much of anything is bad, a majority of them seem to be aware of it.

Working moms try to over compensate the little time they spend with their children by ignoring the mistakes

Mothers should never become conspirators

Being friends with your children means being able to discuss any issue frankly with them

Some feel that authority and command doesn’t work

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