The person I want to talk about is my older cousin Priya, who lives in Kochi, in Kerala. She has two children, a nine-year-old girl and a five-year-old boy, and I stayed with them for a month last summer before starting my job in Bengaluru.
As a parent, she's quite structured but not strict in the old-fashioned way. The children have a simple routine on school days: homework before cartoons, dinner together at the table, and phones away by eight. But within that, they get a lot of freedom. Her daughter chooses her own clothes, even when they don't match at all, and her son is allowed to help in the kitchen, which mostly means making a mess with flour.
I think she's a good parent for three main reasons. Firstly, she explains her rules instead of just giving orders. When her daughter asked why she couldn't have a phone, Priya didn't say "because I said so"; she sat down and talked about what she was worried about, and they agreed to discuss it again at twelve. Secondly, she lets her children fail safely. Her son once insisted on carrying a tray of glasses, and she let him try. He dropped one, and instead of shouting, she showed him how to sweep it up carefully. Thirdly, she apologises when she gets things wrong. I heard her say sorry to her daughter for losing her temper once, and I remember thinking my parents never did that. It taught me that admitting mistakes isn't weakness. If I have children one day, I'd like to be like her.