Its one thing to live in a country that you did not grow up in. Its a totally different game to raise kids in such a country whose values, culture and verbiage are so west of where you first said “jaa”! Its not even the same ball park!

My mom shared this interesting story once about my first word/syllable - “jaa”! It meant nothing in my native tongue apart from sounding very close to the first syllable in last name (jarajapu - spelt as ‘jar-a-jap-oo”) but my parents successfully decoded what I meant based on the context! For example, if it was meal time, “jaa” meant I was hungry. if it was evening and dad just got back from work, it meant “play with me”. if it was hot & stuffy and someone was brute forcing me with their show of affection, it meant “get your hands off me”. if I said it when I smiled, it meant “I am happy”. if I said it at 2 in the middle of the night, it meant “you better get me out of this cradle now or I promise to start crying in 5…4…3…2…1….COL (cry out loud)”!

Parents who raise kids in a culture & context that is alien to them donot have the luxury of such simplistic interpretation! Forget when they are months old, I found parents coping up with the language of second-generation kids even when they are several years old! check these conversations out .

kid : “mom! I am starving to death and I could use some food”.
dad: “you better stop saying that you are starving because you donot know what starvation means! you never even faced it and I dont want you to either!”

“Dad! dont take it so literally ..!?! All I meant to say is that I am really hungry . Seriously, I feel like I could eat a horse”!
..sigh…”look at this guy! I was brought up a pure vegetarian and he already talks about eating horses, pigs and anything else that crawls, walks or breathes? what is next? rats & snakes?? (lowers tone, looks at me, smiles) God! what a place did I choose bring up these little devils”
…”stop talking like you come from the purest land on earth! I heard that people kill animals in temples and eat rats & snakes where you come from!”
“who the he..(looking at mom) are you telling him all these stupid stories?”
“nah! dont go bursting your anger on her..it was my friends”
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kid (yelling): “mom! get me my dinner…”
dad: “is that the way you talk to your mom? you have no right to yell at her . she wont bring your dinner if you did so”
kid: “ofcourse she will..you would have died of starvation long back if she didnt”
dad (anger ..with a display of parenting patience) “ok! I never talked to my mom like that.. I would always go… get my dinner please.. thats a polite way to request..and I want you to learn it..you know …say things like thank you! please!”
kid : OK (smiles)
dad (hints of vexation) : “ok..thats nice. be a nice boy…! I want you to say the magic word!”
kid “mom! can you get me my dinner NOW?”
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kid: “dad! where did I come from”?
now the parents were new to parenting but they were prepping up for this question for sometime now. Now that their little girl is 4 yrs old, they showed pictures of her birth, the video of her birth and explained to her how she was born.
the kid listened to all of this and went..”this is fine! but my friend angie says she came from poland. where did I come from?”

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some are protracted & some verbatim ..but I was witness to them and I could empathize with the frustration of a parent that comes from the unwitting ‘battle over wits’ that they have to fight with their kids …in an attempt to look smarter, older & stronger than their counterparts that grew up, went to school and now work in the very same country (sometimes same city) that were born in. Its not an unfair equation considering the fact that these kids get the best of what is out there and a bite at the free world that their parents struggled so hard for and now savor! But it would definitely have been a different ball game if they were raising kids in their native place!