India and Dating!

Well, well, well, I don’t want to touch the sensitive topic of dating before marriage. Not that I am chicken to all the controversies I will invite but I have something more important and less addressed topic to talk about.

In India we often instruct girls on how to behave after marriage, if not much by today’s open minded parents she will soon be bombarded with unasked guidance from many when she is about to tie the knot. Sooner or later she will be a mother and then again goes plethora of advices about parenting and family issues. All good from a perspective but we tend to forget to educate the boys too who is the other side of the coin. All we do is to teach men to be obedient to mom and dad, get married and earn to pay bills that's all.

We are being so unfair by not teaching about how to handle relationships to our boys. Gradually the modern bride will make him understand that he should share other household responsibilities and then comes bonding with kids and so on. Honestly speaking it is a dramatic change for him to digest as he has never been taught to cook when he was young or told that after getting married you as a father should be changing diapers too whenever needed. So from the “Indian men” perspective he has changed a lot for his beloved wife and doing a wonderful job compared to what he was told to do from the beginning. Now comes another shock falling flat on his face.

Dating after marriage and kids! Relationships like many say is like a plant, it should be watered, nurtured and taken care of so that it does not die out of neglect. To simply put, you may love your children, pay their tuition, buy them clothes but until and unless you sit down and play with them they don’t bond with you. Bonding as a mother with children is important, bonding as a father by interacting one on one with kids is important and so is bonding with your spouse is very important to keep that plant like relationship alive. Everyone has a job and other commitments but schedule at least once a month say a lunch or a date night. Watch a movie together may be once a week on a dvd after kids go to bed. Now that is not all that impossible to fit in our hectic lifestyle and I think it is going to build some serious good memories for long lasting relationship. Stop thinking dating or spending one and one time with your spouse as taboo but think it like you are giving the biggest gift to your children. What else could be better than to gift your children “Happy Parents”. There is no hard and fast rule on who to initiate and ask for a date. But if there is only one person initiating all the time without any reciprocation then it might just frustrate that one person and backfire. So just grab any opportunity coming in front of you, when grandparents visit or hire a babysitter once in awhile to get that time off from your routine as a worker, as a mommy or daddy and nurture one of the toughest relationships that god made.