If You Had A Daughter

[hgsingh]

How would you raise her

How would you empower her

How would you raise her to be a strong powerfull sikh women

[innergear]

Read her Warrior princess stroy tym bk :-) sundri myt b gd 2 be. N put on sum cartoon DVDs boom !

[Dev1975]

Firstly I would make sure that she was treated no differently from my son. My wife and I have talked about this and we both agree that when we have kids, there shouldn't be any difference in the way they are treated. Both of us have seen this as we've been growing up and we don't want to do this to our own kids. To me, there is no difference between my nephews and nieces, I love each of them equally. I'd take that as a starting point and go from there.

[PAL 07]

good topic to discuss - For me the most important thing would be to regularly take them to the Gurdwara, thats where they would get the best sanskaar and a sense of belonging to Sikhism. You can't do it just from home although primary socialization begins in the home. I hope the Gurdwara will have a lot to offer with saadh sangat and divaans and not fights and slander

[chatanga]

The thing about bringing up kids in a Sikh lifestyle, BOTH parents have to want it, or it is hard to do.

[hgsingh]

You can't force your kids to the gurdwara to so hopefully their are more inspirational teachers

[_singhni_]

Interesting topic

I'd first make sure that during pregnancy as much paat as possible was done as iv seen the difference between a child when the mother does paat during pregnancy and then when the mother doesn't. It's immense.

I'd make sure that as parents we spoke and practiced Sikhi with our daughter/son because feel it's important to have a strong foundation at home & by practicing Sikhi with children from the start you won't have to try force them to Gurdwara sahib because they'll have a better undersanding and therefore will automatically have the pyare to go get dharshan of Guru je. (have seen this myself).

I'd make sure my daughter&son both did housework and both knew how to the more "manly" jobs because too often now days the boy gets treated like the raja and the girl gets treated like a slave. My daughter would be encouraged to learn martial arts as there seems to be a very low number of singhnees doing gatka these days. Also I'd give both daughter/son equal amounts freedom; I have observed households where the son who's 5+ younger the daughter has way more freedom than the daughter simply because she's a girl.

Finally I'd make sure I dont mention the all famous "your going to get married & go to your in laws one day" to my daughter too much/at all until she's at marriage stage. Mentioned this because too often girls get thrown this quote (talking from experience) and it can make the girl feel like she's just time pass in her family household. I think this boys are more favoured over girls is a issue we as the next generation to try to get rid of because by favouring boys where risking loosing our girls.

Ps: im not yet married so my opinions are just based on experience as a singhnee in the world today.

#rantover

[VanHelsingh]

I'd first make sure that during pregnancy as much paat as possible was done as iv seen the difference between a child when the mother does paat during pregnancy and then when the mother doesn't. It's immense.

Good point.

It would be interesting to set-up an experiment (of sorts) by having a bibi who is pregnant and reads Gurbani daily throughout her pregnancy and also have another bibi who watches those god awful Indian soaps during her pregnancy, and then carefully analyse the child over the course of a few years after birth. Has the Gurbani the child heard in the mother's womb had a long-lasting effect on him/her? Has it made any difference at all? Of course other factors would need to be taken into consideration but it would be fun to see. :biggrin2:

[_singhni_]

Kuljug je funnily enough I have seen this in person. 1 of my relatives constantly did bani/attended sangat etc and other didn't. The one who did has a young singh who's very into sikhi&has immense pyare/knowledge on Sikhi. Whereas the relative who did the typical watching soaps, listening to music watching desi films etc has a young child who has know idea of Sikhi. Yet the singh who's mother tried her best to do as much bani etc during pregnancy even from age of 1 used to go into deevan and not talk or run around like the usuual normal kids do.