My parents came to visit when our first-born (Thuli) was about 4 months old. By that time Thuli had been sleeping in her own room for many months. My mother was shocked. I myself had not been terribly conflicted since I valued the sleep that I got since our precious bundle of joy went on to sleep in her own room.
My mother struggled with this (as did my dad). In Nepal and I’m sure throughout South Asia children sleep with their parents for many years. I’m certainly no stranger to that idea and when Shreemati made plans to get the crib ready at around 11-12 weeks (we had her in a bassinet in our room until then) I was a little taken aback. However, when it’s just the two of you and not a house full of relatives raising children you need to be efficient. So, I understood what we were doing.
My parents never turned this into an argument or anything like that, but many questions did arise. My mom openly questioned whether the child was getting enough love or not. But to anyone who has been around my girls, that is a silly question with a very obvious answer. However, after a few weeks my mom started to observe that children here are very independent and are taught to do things on their own from an early age. She started to see that perhaps our way of doing things is most definitely not the only way of doing things.
When they were here last summer my mother was again taken aback. They were surprised to see how much Maili (middle one then 17 months old) could do on her own. Maili ate on her own, was already pooping on the potty and was close to being out of diapers. Not that this is necessarily an American thing, but my mom was again surprised by how much kids can be trained to do things. I guess the bottom line is she always thought kids needed to be babied well into years 7 and 8. Something very common in South Asia. Well we have certainly shown that is not the case. And we still love our children very much.
