5 things my parents never taught me: For good!

For the 1st few years of my life, I had a limited interaction with the outside world. Let’s just say I was a shy child. My opinions were mainly my parents’ and I am glad most of those made me what I am today. There are things your parents tell you — to follow a few practices, behave a certain way (or not), indulge in some activities. But that’s all they can do.

The rest, and maybe most of it, is what you see and remember for a long time -their actions, beliefs and words, including overheard conversations. Yes, we have had disagreements, they may have made mistakes, they have definitely been wrong but that post is for another day.

Here are 5 things they never told me and I’ll forever be thankful for that:

Men are superior to women

I am almost sure this is because I and my sister didn’t have a male sibling. Whatever the reason be, our parents never even once said that you can’t do something because it’s supposed to be a man’s job. From managing a bank account to changing a car’s tyre, they wanted us to learn everything. Instead of telling to find a man who will take care of me, they taught me to take care of myself. Another story, I still found that man. ;)

Cross your legs

From where I come, a lot of my female friends were taught to always sit by crossing their legs. I hadn’t even heard the term until I was 20. One evening, while having dinner in college cafeteria, a friend asked me to “Watch my legs. Behave. Sit appropriately. Close them if not cross”, she said. FYI, I was wearing a jeans, not a skirt. At home, we could sit freely, focus on comfort and not worry about who might want to peep between those legs.

This World is a dangerous place

India is not one of the safest countries for women. Nothing new about that. While some regions are comparatively safer than others, ‘Uttar Pradesh’ (where I was born and brought up) is clearly not one of those secure areas. Yes, we were not allowed to roam alone after dark. Yes, we were asked to be careful of our surroundings. But those were not strict rules or warnings against the big bad world out there. It was just a way of living, something as simple as going to sleep at night, or taking bath in the morning. They never told us to not trust strangers, or to not visit an earthquake prone country. I still don’t know if they were ignorant of all the crimes/incidents happening around or just didn’t want to scare us.

Small town girls are strange (Read: Mediocre)

Come to think of it, the place where I spent the first ten years of my life shouldn’t even be called a town. It should fall somewhere between a village and an extremely tiny city. But that didn’t mean my parents missed out on doing things for us they would have done in a metropolitan. We were brought up to become independent and confident ladies, to hold our heads high and to believe in ourselves. In fact, I only realized I come from a small town once I moved out for college. Where people boasted about being from Delhi and looked down upon everyone else who wasn’t. Fools!

Money is everything

We always had enough, sometimes even more than enough. But they never seem to be all arrogant and pretentious about it. They bought us all we wanted, but took care to not spoil us. I don’t know how but I have grown up believing that poverty only means lack of money, and happiness cannot be evaluated in terms of your bank balance.

What’s one thing your parents never taught you and you can’t thank them enough for it?