GGIS has an almost all-female staff. Since November 2015, every week we all get together and play Kabaddi or Kho-kho (native Indian sports) or some other game for at least 30–45 minutes.

So why do we invest this valuable but little time of our playing? Why not do checking and lesson planning? Why?

The obvious reasons being better health, physical fitness, etc. As schools when we do such things, we look better employers too.

But we started, and continue, with sports for a very different reason. We women are pretty emotional. Small things make us unhappy and even smaller ones make us cringe. When we work together, we form our own biases. And unlike males (in most cases) we do ​not forget them over a cup ofchai or a round of drinks. We carry them. Carry them to our sleep and beyond without even realising that when we hold the grudge, it is we who take the worst of it.

At GGIS, we work in a team and we encourage sharing and being honest. Our culture expressly curtails backbiting and sniggering. ​But how do we put this across? This question haunted me for days together. And sports is what came as an obvious answer. There are plenty of benefits to playing sports, but we do it so that we develop a team-spirit, a sportsman spirit. Heck, there is not even a word like sportswoman spirit!

When teachers are on the field playing kabaddi, they form a team and choose the ​best raider. They hide the one they know is going to make them lose points. They work as a team. And curse each other at times, but they also lend a hand to the one on the ground. ​Isn’t all this as much required in our staff room as on the ground? With that hope, we play rather than check and plan!

How long will this last and what will be the long term benefits, I do not know. But when teachers get together to play after a long, hard day, its sight worth beholding.

I belong to a family that is close to its roots. But I work with people who belong to the world. I am primitive. I am cosmopolitan. I am the cusp.

When I see parents putting restrictions on their children’s behavior, I understand their concerns. They want to raise better children. When I see children flouting those restrictions, I understand them too. They were not born to be confined.

My contemporaries believe a daughter and son both are same. It does not matter. I agree. But they raise their daughters to be “girls”, not children. My older generation favors a son. Does that make them wrong? They were born in a male-dominated society. But they still gave birth to daughters like us and we also had the freedom to form our opinions. We were not raised to hold “girl-opinion”. Who then is narrower minded?

It tears me apart, it makes me wonder and dilemma is never solved. But I enjoy the moment. This and many more such questions keep me occupied. As I said, I am blessed.

We meet such moms very often. They hold degrees. They have taken a few foreign trips. Their newborn is the apple of their eye and their world rotates around their child. Although they do not hold jobs and have full time maids and cooks and family, they still genuinely feel overwhelmed. They are the new-age, idle moms and there is a brigade of them.

One common trait with them is their anxiety of getting the best for their child. The best party. The best clothes. The best activity and of course the best school. Put together just two moms of school-going children and within 5 minutes the conversation diverts to schools. Homeworks are discussed. Teaching methods are dissected. Trivial details are pestered upon. Gossip is exchanged and opinions are formed. In most cases, authenticity is not sought. While schools too, do not communicate their vision clearly, there is clearly over-analysis on part of the brigade of what their ward is doing. The brigade is so pre-occupied with the well-being of their child that they many a times do the most damage. The children, like all of us humans, need just two things.

Friends to be with and a bit of our own space.

In the modern urban India more and more couples choose to have a single child. Or many times have two children who are years apart, leaving the older one to be lonely for long periods of time. And when the parents realize that the child is feeling lonely a trip to the fanciest toy shop is made and goodies are bought in bulk to compensate for a playmate. Play dates are organized and activities are enrolled in to develop social skills. But siblings and cousins are irreplaceable. Playmate of the same age is missed and loneliness sets in.

The brigade then finds the child’s behaviour erratic and unusual and another aspect of childhood, giving space, is taken away. The moms choose not to let anything be. The school or the colony friends or the maid’s child or the in-laws are then blamed for “improper” behaviour of the child. It is then discussed in-depth over long chats with other moms when the child is kept busy at an activity.

The children need to be rescued from the brigade. They need to run free. Without anxious moms. And the moms too need to breathe in new air. They need to overcome their anxiety and revel in the childhood rather than make it a race.

And I can’t help but share Khalil Gibran’s thoughts on children which seem so appropriate to the topic.

Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts.

PS: This story was first published on our school’s blog.

Brigade of new-age, idle moms was originally published in Student Voices on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.