When Home Alone Meets Barbie, It’s Pure Magic!

Every Christmas season, I make the kids watch Home Alone with me. It’s our annual tradition. I laugh at the same jokes, know most of the movie script by heart, and cry every time Kevin locks eyes with his mom at the end. While I think it’s one of the best family movies out there, that is not the reason I watch it or insist on my family doing so. I watch it because I get to relive one of my favorite childhood memories.

It was around Thanksgiving 1990 and I was eleven. My brother and I were spending the night at one of my childhood friend’s homes. My childhood friend’s mom, also my favorite Indian Aunty, decided she was going to take us out to the movies. We loved going to this Aunty’s house because she took care of all of us as if we were her own. When she planned sleepovers, she ensured that she had all our favorite treats and foods specifically curated to the preferences of each child: the range was exceptional from making me homemade fettucine alfredo (!) to buying another friend cheese puffs and making sure my brother had chocolate ice cream. We were especially excited that evening to go to the movies.

Growing up, going to the movie theater was a real treat. The fact this Aunty took all the kids to the evening show was an even rarer experience. But the best part? Aunty treated us to all the candy, popcorn and soda we wanted! We were in heaven even before the movie began. And on top of that, the movie was Home Alone! From the minute the movie started, we were giggling and laughing and having the time of our lives. I remember looking over at Aunty during the movie to find her in hysterics over one of Kevin’s antics. I had never laughed so much in a movie. It was pure childhood magic.

So when my ten-year old daughter asked to see the new Barbie movie with one of her girlfriends yesterday, I jumped at the opportunity. I ditched my afternoon meetings, picked up the girls from summer camp and headed to the movies. The girls squealed when I said they could get what they wanted. They chose popcorn buckets bigger than their heads and slushees with ridiculous amounts of food coloring and sugar. They ran up to their seats with glee. Halfway through the movie, my daughter reached for my arm, gave it a little squeeze, and whispered how good the movie was with the biggest grin on her face. She was having the time of her life and I was so grateful to be experiencing it with her. Channeling my inner favorite Aunty, I returned my daughter’s smile and was transported to a tale of a kid left home alone, fending off two not-so-smart burglars with clever pranks and tricks, wishing for their family during Christmas. And I could feel my beloved Aunty, who sadly passed away years ago now, smiling down on me as well. Pure magic.

Conquering COVID-19

When we realized we were going to be home for the foreseeable future, my husband and I came up with a plan to conquer the COVID-19 quarantine. We sat down with our two children, ages 10 and 7, and together, developed a schedule for each day that would work for us all. 9-10 AM: breakfast and review work for the day; 10-11 AM: math, games and exercises: 11-12 PM: reading and writing, etc. Peppered throughout the day, my husband and I would tackle various work calls and meetings. We were going to maintain a kick-ass schedule and come out of the COVID-19 quarantine smarter, better, fitter, healthier and largely unaffected!

This enthusiasm lasted all but a few days, each day letting go of one more aspect of the rigid schedule. We are well into week 11 and how we started is not even close to where we are now. Long gone are the white boards setting the quote or intention of the day with another one carefully outlining the day’s color-coded schedule. I realize the foolishness and naïveté with which I had approached our initial days in quarantine let alone understanding the toll this would all take on our mental health.

Most days, my husband and I leave the kids on their own, giving them license to finish their schoolwork, to relax or as is the case most of the time, to do something in-between. While they have been relatively good about getting their daily work completed with minimal parental involvement (especially my son), most days they are done before lunch time. Much to our chagrin, our workdays do not follow my children’s school schedule requiring us to work well into the early evening.

So, while we continue to work, the kids are largely left unattended. We have stopped micromanaging their behaviors and are letting them be. And much to my surprise, they are flourishing. We are “quaranteaming” with a few neighbors who also have children and the kids have been playing in our private way for the past few months, of course following local protocols including wearing masks and social distancing. They have developed their own creative and imaginative games, they ride their scooters and bikes, and my son even managed to teach himself how to roller blade! My son has discovered his love for the piano, finding music to pop songs online and performing mini-concerts. My daughter has developed her own language with her friend next door, a combination of sounds, taps and signaling through the windows, talking to each other even on rainy days. It’s certainly not perfect but this unsupervised time buys us precious work hours in the afternoon and gives my children independence, fresh air and unstructured playtime.

As the kids discover new interests and hobbies, we have also been enjoying time as a family. In the evenings, we have taken to scooter walks around the neighborhood, relaxed homemade dinners, drawn-out nighttime routines including watching Great British Baking Show (my son’s British accent is so good!) and cuddle-time with a book. Certainly we have our difficult days and moments of complete and utter frustration with the current situation and home confinement. But, we are grateful for what we have and like so many other people, we are trying to do the best we can under these circumstances.

And when my daughter runs down the stairs after having just communicated with her friend next door in their secret language, with a wide toothy smile, and says ”I’m going outside Mommy!”, I grin as I return to my work, knowing that despite everything, my children are relatively happy and will be just fine. And so will I as I savor a few more borrowed hours of peace and quiet.

Will you let your kids date? It depends.

During our recent family trip, we started talking about whether my husband and I would let our children date. My kids are 6 and 9 so truth be told, I haven’t really thought about this just yet. But as I started to articulate my feelings on this, I realized that my answer, while seemingly a cop out, is really my stance on most issues pertaining to my children. It depends.

As a first-generation American, I watched my parents struggle with these decisions. I saw how they wrestled with these Western notions of love, dating, drinking, earning money and independence at a young age. And I remember thinking at the time that when I became a parent that I would do things differently. I wouldn’t make a production about my kids going to prom with dates, or going out on a date. I would be the mom who would be able to navigate American culture more deftly and flexibly. I would be the American mom who didn’t have the same boundaries as my Indian immigrant parents or the same needs to showcase perfection to the Indian community. In other words, I would be the cool Indian-American mom.

Starting to talk about my feelings about my own children dating, I was surprised by my answer. Mostly, because I had assumed that different meant opposite - that I would unequivocally do things radically different from my parents. What my younger self didn’t appreciate is that all of these issues are extremely complicated and not black and white. There is so much gray area and the gray area seems to expand when you throw in immigration, South Asian culture and preservation of said culture, applicability to the second generation coupled with normal teenage issues of puberty, feelings of inclusion/exclusion, and peer pressures that have been around since time immemorial.

But now as a parent, I am not sure how different I will be from my parents. I appreciate and understand where my parents were coming from when they came up with their rules. Dating could be a distraction from their teenage life- period. However, where I think I will differ from my parents will be in our approach. While the ends may be the same, the means of getting there will be radically different in that we will try our best to communicate with our children. We will make every attempt to keep channels of communication open so that they can talk to us about their feelings, anxieties, concerns, and frustrations. And we can do the same with them. Hopefully with this two-way street of dialogue, we will continue to build the foundations of trust and respect so that, when we finally make that decision of whether they are allowed to date, it won’t come as a surprise, to them or to us.

What are your thoughts?

Our favorite family pastime

Last night, my children, husband and I cuddled on our sofa and watched old videos. My kids are 6 and 9 so it’s not that they are SO old, but this has become a favorite family pastime of ours. We all have our favorites, and for different reasons. The kids delight in seeing themselves when they were younger and my husband and I love seeing how much the kids have grown and how far we have come as a family.

While nostalgia fills the air, this tradition of ours also reminds us just how precious life is and what really matters. This is especially true as we have lost my husband’s mother last year. The first few times we engaged in this pastime, we had to skip over those videos that featured my mother-in-law. The pain was too raw and the feelings were a bit too much and too soon for my husband. There is one particular video that has us in stitches every single time we watch it, and in that video, my mother-in-law features prominently. Last night, while I gave my husband a gentle squeeze, we watched this video in its entirety. We laughed and rejoiced at the memory, at her memory, and were ever-grateful that we had captured such a precious moment on film.

And I needed this reminder. I find this pastime especially helpful during emotional or difficult times. When I’m caught up in the trivial, seeing my children delight in their younger selves grounds me and centers me in a way that few other things can. Experiencing our past together as a family is especially rewarding and reminds me of who I was as a person and who I am now. I especially love hearing my daughter squeal “look what she is doing!” about her younger self and my son basking in the love and adoration that can be felt from the plethora of videos we took of him before his little sister came along. For each of us, we are reminded of some very important and fundamental truths of ourselves and it is these reminders that will help sustain this tradition for years to come.

What pastimes have you developed as a family? Are there any rituals that you perform that center and ground you? Please share!