Parenting without gender stereotypes

In this excerpt from 'Raising Stars', Nandita Das talks about the challenges of raising boys with a sense of equality 

- Nandito Don

From the day my son was born, the one book that I have constantly been writing in my head is about parent-book that I have constantly been writing in my head is about parenting. The last eight years have been dramatically different from my entire life before that. I definitely don't subscribe to the theory that being a mother is essential for women or that we are incomplete without playing this role. That would be too much of a generalization and unfair to the many new lives that women are finally able to lead.

But personally speaking, this experience continues to impact all my big and small decisions about life and work. I am constantly creating and editing my own handbook of what "right" parenting is all about. But there isn't an easier way out. No wonder they say, "A mother is born on the same day as her child". I am an older mother and was hoping to therefore be more mature and wiser. I struggle with the same questions, pangs, and dilemmas that most first-time mothers go through.

I remember how, when I was pregnant, I wanted a daughter. Probably the collective guilt of male preference weighed on me and made me want to right the wrong. But over the years I have realized that the challenges of raising a boy to be sensitive and to have a deep sense of equality were no less than the challenges of raising a girl to be confident and free. Unfortunately, social constructs and stereotypes gender children very early. Toy shops have separate sections for girls and boys; clothes and gifts are blue and pink, and comments like "Don't cry like a girl!" and "Don't sit like a boy!" plague our environment. How much can one protect a child from such an onslaught? How does one expose a child to a more egalitarian and genderless world without making them too self-conscious about it?