What Indian Parents Can Learn From The Movie “A Kid Like Jake”

Parenting is one thing everyone always talks about. There is a constant debate on how to raise good, kind and successful children. Each culture has its own philosophies, and theories. Recently in India, there has been a lot of conversation about parenting in a non-gender-normative fashion. Parents struggle with the disillusionment and the taboo of having gender atypical children.

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Fortunately, there is a global movement aimed at breaking the stigma surrounding gender fluidity in children. The movie, A Kid Like Jake is an ideal example of how media is using its voice to challenge norms and is building richer narratives surrounding gender in children. The movie also sheds light on the difficulty parents face while raising children who display gender fluidity. Here are five things this wonderful movie teaches us:

1. No person or family is perfect:

An ideal person, child, relationship or family doesn’t exist. A family is made up of individuals, each with their distinctive strengths and weaknesses. It is in unity and acceptance that families thrive. Our society tends to have a say in our judgment of good-bad, right-wrong, fair-unfair, and while in some cases this is useful, we can’t let it dictate how we raise our family. What works for you and your family should supersede what society thinks should work.

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2. You  need time and space: 

In order to help your child navigate through difficult situations, you need to give yourself time and space to sort out your thoughts: Once people embark on parenthood they often feel that they should transform themselves into search engines like Google. They must know all the answers, they must respond to their child’s questions, desires and distress instantly and with clinical precision. This tall order often leaves parents feeling overwhelmed, which in turn results in them sending mixed signals to their child. Nobody knows everything, and it is natural to feel shocked, worried, confused and dreaded.

The key is to provide your child with a safe space to come and share their experiences. It is okay to take time to process the situation and respond; in fact, your ability to acknowledge the need for space and time will help take the pressure off you and will give your child a healthy behaviour to model when faced with novel or difficult situations.

3. Embrace your child’s differences:

Regardless of age, gender or sexuality, being a kid in today’s world is very hard. The main reason for this is that we are evolving into a uniform global civilization as a society. In order to evolve into this global civilization, we choose bits and pieces from the western world to imbibe. This results in the children of today and their parents being thoroughly confused. We want our children to be groomed into global citizens but with limits, and these boundaries are often not clear. While we embrace English as a global language and adopt western fashion, we find it hard to accept concepts like feminism, homosexuality and gender fluidity. The truth is it is concepts such as feminism, homosexuality and gender fluidity that we need to adopt. We need to embrace our children for who they are and what makes them happy.

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4. Seek Guidance from Professionals:

As Indians, we have an extremely rich cultural heritage which has information from everything from herbal medications to spiritual enlightenment. While there is no doubt that these ancient guidelines have truth and value, we cannot ignore the fact that over the years the information has been watered down and possibly exaggerated. Further, science has made some remarkable discoveries which add to our information bank, and finally, the source of our information (often aged members of society) can be not very reliable. As Indians, we have a rich cultural heritage that has imparted to us important teachings. However, we tend to rely heavily on this ancient knowledge, unquestioningly, which may not be as reliable as we believe. We shy away from asking for professional guidance due to the fear of being judged by society. We need to move away from this, and incorporate both reliable ancient knowledge and modern science in our search for answers – and not be afraid to ask for professional guidance!

5. Build a relationship with your child:

Parents often forget to build a relationship with their child. We expect our children to trust, communicate and connect with us but forget that in order to have these qualities in any relationship we have to build them. Indian parents often focus on helping their child obtain a secure future, but let the relationship suffer. Parents know what classes their child goes to but can’t tell you why their little boys prefer a Barbie to a GI Joe or prefers having male friends over female friends– because they’ve never asked! Similarly parents avoid discussing uncomfortable topics with their children like sexuality and gender identity. This sends the message that these topics are unacceptable or simply not okay to talk about. Parents need to communicate with their children and this means being naturally curious about your child’s thoughts and feelings, and actually listening. Effective communication involves listening and discussing the topics you may not be comfortable with or fully understand. Parents are so focused on the end goal of providing a stable future for the child, they forget to enjoy the journey.

Here's what you need to remember:

• Parenting is a complicated journey filled with highs and lows.
• At the root of every parent’s actions is the intention to keep their child safe and happy.
• In this age of change, parents have the challenge of parenting their children in an ever-changing landscape. there is often a feeling of swim or sink. In India we are terrified of being ridiculed and socially ostracized for having a child who is transgender, homosexual, bisexual or gender fluid.
• The truth is when we put social norms and expectations before our child’s needs we are doing to them what we ourselves fear the most – ridiculing and isolating them.
• All over the world, there are movements to accept, love and support all of humanity. It is time for Indian parents to join this movement.

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Here's the trailer of "the movie- A Kid Like Jake". And don't forget to watch the movie in a theatre near you. 

–Tanya Vasunia, Psychologist and Outreach Associate @Mpower Minds

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