First Time Ever| Karan Johar On Being A Parent To Yash & Roohi

0:00 today we're chatting with producer director actor host anchor and and of course uh father more importantly and he is father to yash and rohi and we're very excited to check with him on his latest book which is his first children's book along with juggernaut and can't wait to deep dive into this chat with him because it really brings out a lot of conversations that you and me need to have today because it is on gender stereotyping and

0:30 somewhere consciously subconsciously we're all doing it hey karen so nice to talk with you today no thank you so tell me what really prompted this book so actually it was a conversation i had with chicky uh sarkar you know when she spoke to me about the idea of doing a children's book and i think uh to me uh you know what's always been not upsetting well it's been almost uh when i observed parents say things you know

0:59 to their children and as i don't blame millions of parents because i think that's how they grew up by things that were just loosely said without realizing that they can actually walk into the psyche of a child and stay there children are very impressionable things that kind of enter their psyche and their head space actually define and make them the people they eventually become so little things like when you say why you crying don't cry no boys don't cry

1:24 now why would you say that because that goes and makes a boy feel like he's a totally different you know person in on some different kind of emotional pedestal as opposed to a girl or you turn around and tell a girl that you should learn qatar or you should learn ballet or you should not learn taekwondo because apparently girls don't you know learn taekwondo now if at all what a girl must learn in this day and age is definitely self defense

1:51 and a boy should not be in a just and if a boy wants to wear a pink shirt like this blue pink phenomena really drives me crazy and my children you know was succumbing to that stereotype that you know oh i don't like blue because that's for yash um he would say i'm pink because i'm a girl and it was just bothering me these things i used to tell my nurses and nannies my own mother you know please don't say

2:15 these things if yash wants to play with the doll it's fine it's a doll i mean you know if he wants to ride the car or the cycle let her you know why does she have to sit with the doll and yash has to be with the car and he has the water gun but ruhi has some kind of a barbie kit and i'm like we're putting them into boxes and the moment you put your children into boxes that's who they

2:38 become they live in that box and they don't know the world around that box so i believe in fluidity you know and i believe that you have to allow them to breathe grow and then eventually become the people they need to become by their own choice not yours you can't dictate their choices for them at a young stage and we we say the more the darnest things you know we say the most ridiculous things which actually come from no space of

3:05 logic you know so the book really was when i was talking to chicken in that conversation i kept rambling about this and she said you know you have a book right there so that's when we got writing and you know and it was just a story of like like twins because i wanted to kind of base them on my own experience it's about how we raise our children and what we say the book is very simple it's really about what not

3:27 to say rather than what to say right i definitely do feel like we're all products of our childhood what was childhood growing up like i was a very effeminate child in my growing years it's not something that i had any control over either my the way i ran or the way my hands moved or the way i was and you know there used to be a word in this eighties they used to call boys like that fans these you know the

3:51 word was pansy which is not a word we use today because now there are boxes you put you know sexuality into now terminology boxes um but um i i would say at that time it used to make me feel that i was lesser you know in terms of when you went onto a football pitch and you weren't allowed to play because you were apparently not a boy you know because you were like a girl they thought that was what other boys

4:18 thought uh similarly uh you know it was the same thing even in the groups of people that you met so i was always closer to the girls you know it was the boys would either make fun of you or then be protective of you there was no kind of equal give and take you know it was either boys who would say that don't worry i'll you'll be okay if you're standing by me or they would make fun

4:39 poke a joke so when i wasn't allowed to play sport i wasn't allowed to kind of you know engage with those activities that were then i found myself seeking some kind of solace in food so then i grew you know into a larger boy and then an even larger boy and that and that made me get my own level of insecurities so one thing ripples into the other so my childhood was not troubled it was beautiful i had

5:03 the most solid parenting i had wonderful wonderful relationships around me but these things do walk into your head space you know you have to then fight your own inner battle to emerge from there and that i did fortunately i had my mother and father with the kind of parents that gave me that self-confidence that they never ever ever made me feel like you know i was different from anyone else um and you know in fact i walked the path of like

5:30 drama and elocution and debate in school and i got my confidence from there so i still remember that at my school um like the last year in school you know where normally the boys who run in sport are the most popular but i had to kind of achieve that level of popularity in school because i was the the debater the elocutionist i was the drama face and you know i had got equal number of points for my house you know we have red

5:55 blue green yellow so in my in my head space i had emerged as a star at like in my own head of course but i felt like that gave me the confidence to combat what was coming my way had i not been successful at something else and my parents hadn't encouraged me i may have lived with that insecurity all my life and god and lord knows where i would have been today but that's when i think parenting is very

6:18 critical because no matter what the child goes through my parents never made me feel like i was different or lesser or like i should be like the others my mother never told me why aren't you hanging with her playing more sport my father never my father you know just encouraged everything i ever wanted to do when i wanted to learn a language like french or learn an instrument or kind of like do drama and theater and

6:42 you know and and you know possibly not do what other boys were doing he allowed me and my mother allowed me and i think that's why i'm here today there was a point of time as a child i was the only boy in like a jazz ballet class you know and i remember my my father used to drive me to that class and i'm talking about the 80s and i he didn't find it strange and therefore i didn't find it

7:04 strange and i was the only boy in that class because i wanted to then when i was in college i did a course on like ballroom dance with actually siddharth roy kapoor uh you know you know he's a filmmaker his mother surrounding kapoor used to have these classes in kolava and cuff parade and i did jazz and the foxtrot and the waltz and and i don't know for what joy i was doing this but it made me so happy and

7:26 no one stopped me and i'm like my father just told me whatever you do enjoy your work that's it you know so and i think that's the advice i would tell parents to tell their children that you know you may think that you know papa business hair and you know the sun should kind of do that or do something more stable in your opinion like being a lawyer doctor engineer is everybody thinks those are more stable professions

7:49 but the only stability you have to really look for is your child's mental health instability and that comes from their core happiness and if they want to be a musician they may not make the money that you may imagine that that the world needs to make you know to survive in in our times today but at least it will give them the joy to try it and let them reach the decision that they've not worked it out for themselves don't make

8:11 it for them you know and i i believe that like my father always told me if you fail at something that doesn't mean you failed it means you've learned something and you'll move on to learning something else and i i really think that i got the right kind of thoughts that having said that some of the stereotypes also came in my way no parents are not no parent is perfect but i think i would say i drew more

8:33 positives for my parenting than any negatives what's the kind of value system you know you're they're obviously growing up with the abundance of so much what's the kind of value system that you want to imbibe in there firstly respect for each other's gender is not negotiable in my respect like i believe that that this bifurcation of girl and boy has to kind of stop and like there's no way that i will allow any kind of like superiority given to

9:01 one over the other you know that is something that is not and i i'm training them to be like that you have to respect each other as genders and respect all respect everyone and just respect is very critical so when you know when the other day i walked in and you know and i said do namaste you know to to somebody and because i've trained them to do namaste not for any other reason it's also because we're in kobe times so

9:24 that's the that's the it's the reason why namaste was probably hygienic but to me i'm not being like traditional and indian i'm just being practical and also making them get mannered but to me that manners is very critical the second thing for me is manners say the hellos say the thank yous say the goodbyes please be mannered because that's the one thing that i appreciate in every other children that to me manners is not negotiable i think the third thing is expression of

9:51 love like i want to train them to be able to express their love not just their dissent or their disappointment that to me is not not negotiable but that to me is emotionally not negotiable because i think that we really allow our children sometimes not allow we don't express our love so our children don't express their love so i'm always expressing mine and i'm making them express theirs you know i always tell them if you come once in a while without

10:17 a reason and tell say dara i love you mama i love you they call my my mother mama as well and i'm like express your love because we all don't allow something that kind of expression we are sometimes especially between fathers and sons it's a i know it's a cliche and again a stereotype but it's true to around us there's a lot of silence in that dynamic for some weird reason because i think many general don't like to express

10:41 themselves uh i don't want that of my child of my son or my daughter so the other thing is that is expression of love respect for gender manners expression for love and of course the other thing that for me is very critical is discipline because i believe they must sleep at a certain hour wake up and have some kind of discipline because i know what it's done for me like i'm never late for a meeting because i respect time because

11:06 my father and mother respected mine and allowed me to respect theirs i feel punctualities a very underrated virtue you know i believe that we as for others us delay is apparently okay it's not okay in my book i'm like i'll never make someone wait and i believe from now i inculcate that discipline in them so that in the future they can go ahead and i'm making my mistakes i'm allowing them the sugar that i shouldn't i'm allowing

11:34 them the the food habits sometimes i'm allowing them to be a little i'm allowing the indulgence now and then i can't help myself i'm a single parent in that way and i feel like i'm allowed some of those things but these are some of the qualities that i believe in my space of parenting are not negotiable uh also the disparity shown by you is going to finally creep into the headspace you don't show the disparity in your

11:58 immediate environment you're going to then make them feel like so you know so it's it comes from very tiny things about how they address everyone in the house you know respect that you give the others in your immediate like you know your work environment in the house is how they will be so that is very critical that you make sure that there is that respect given you know which they do and i think not only compassion

12:21 to people working for you but also for other children you know the ability to want to share because i notice children at a very early age are immediately territorial about their things it's the way they're meant to be i think in a certain way you have to break that territorialism you know you have to make them kind of try and share though i'm trying very hard my children are just not sharers for some reason they don't

12:44 even share with each other like they are so crazily protective about their things i don't know what to do i'm trying every day think sharing is caring is like almost become a mantra in my life and i think i have to find a new way of saying it to them they just don't like to share their things for some reason and i'm totally the opposite of that i think they get that from maybe my mother i

13:03 have to change that because my mother is very territorial about her things i think that's it so let me blame it on her just let me just feel free of that you know we're constantly making decisions for our children what is that dilemma that you go through as a parent every single day thinking am i doing the right thing what are those questions that play around in your head you know i think there's no rule book in

13:27 parenting you know that's the first thing that we need to know the dilemmas are all allowed you're allowed to have those dilemmas because you're like am i forcing my characteristics on my child am i forcing my traditions and values and my religious beliefs or my spiritual beliefs on my child there's always that you must understand your children absorb you know they kind of get a sense of you without you realizing that almost i feel like children up to a certain age are

13:53 like psychics they kind of know exactly what's going on if i'm sad and low my son and daughter sometimes just find their way to come and give me that hug i've never asked for it i've not told them anything they just know something is wrong it's like they can smell it and sense it so i think what you do and what you say at home is very critical because they're all like sponges they're absorbing you on a daily basis so whether you like it

14:18 or not your moral fabric your beliefs your practices what you do what you say is going to be entering their headspace you cannot change that then who they hang out with is the stage two because that is also good they say like old grannies you know so other people who have different so it's very critical that you look at who your children are actually meeting you know because and that's the only one thing that i might sound rigid

14:47 when i say this but i'm very because that's the one thing that i knew my parents were very careful about like careful about because you may inculcate all the values in your child what you believe or you might think that they're going in the right way but then they will go outside in the real world make their own relationships and they're with people who are contrary to what you would like your child to be or what you

15:08 think that is the right way uh and that could mess things up you could it could actually wash over all your beautiful fluid training because you'll suddenly find your child not at one point in time they're not in your control right they go into school they're meeting other kids so i always tell myself that that's the second stage right now i'm not facing any dilemma they're like beautiful sponge especially in this uh lockdown it's this whole year

15:32 they haven't really stepped out so they've just seen me and my mom and uh you know hopefully we've been saying and doing the right things around them so they're fine um but i feel like a to answer your first part of the question the dilemma is allowed but your biggest dilemma should be not what you're saying at home is but what happens when they step out of the boundary of your house that's where the real i would say the

15:53 word control because you should never control but you should observe monitor and then give your take when required now we struggle and we feel inadequate to play either a mom play dad play grand mom aunt uncle whatever you're obviously multitasking with those roles of playing both the parents how hard is it what the kind of challenges that you face every single day so i have to be very honest and say i've not felt any divide really i've not felt

16:22 the void because of my mother my mother is literally 24 7. like the only television she watches is the nanny cam so that is that she's obsessed with my children in the most beautiful way i like literally when she's not in their room she's watching them on her phone so she is like it's like big boss like you know like my mother is big boss and looking over these children like literally looming large knowing exactly what's going on so i haven't really felt

16:47 the void for myself i would say that maybe eventually there are times that i feel like do i miss a partner kind of to do this but because i have my mother and we in a very early stage decided that they would call her mama uh so that you know they feel like there's a dhara mama and everything is like everyone else's because you know i knew that they would go out and see mamas and dadas

17:06 everywhere and i didn't want them to feel that they know so because my mother is so hands on everything that void is not i don't think i would love to give you an emotionally uh you know evocative response to that but i don't have because there is actually complete normalcy complete happiness in this beautiful arrangement and i would never have been able to do this without my mother like i think that i have to bless her and thank her and even though

17:33 she is my mother and you can take your mothers for granted or so they say i don't want to do that i want to be appreciative of everything she's ever done for my children because really the value system she's inculcated in me is beautifully getting transferred to them as well and i'm really fortunate i have i changed nappies a few times but not very many times have them yes have i fed them yes have they slept with me yes

17:58 i've done those maternal paternal well crossover duties but have i done a lot of it no i don't want to lie to you no but do i feel like i need to yes have i not been able to yes would i like too much more of it yes has it made a difference i'm not sure but because i stay because my mother always says you know this is crazy i do all the work and yet they come running

18:22 to you in the way they've never come running to me because they are very attached to me um and uh all i think i've given that mean abundance is love and uh i think sometimes maybe uh nappy changing is required but then that love somehow i hope hopefully hopefully compensates not that i'm justifying my inaction in that department but i'm do saying i'm saying that i haven't found because my schedules are crazy so i make time for

18:46 them enough time for them but then i have to kind of sacrifice some of those duties for the work that i do no like i look at my mother she's 78 years old she has bad knees she has had three spinal surgeries she's really in pain all the time yet the alertness to do with them her just have her abandoned in the way she kind of monitors them and just the kind of passion she has for her parent part of

19:12 the parenting i mean i really have to be so eternally grateful to her because this would have been an impossible task and i kind of knew that i had her that's why i took that decision and very honestly if i didn't have her presence in my life the way i do i may not have even taken this plunge because i do believe that it's it's an obvious task you know it is parenting is a tough tough tough task and because

19:36 you're creating people and personalities and bringing them into a turbulent world um you do need i'm not saying that single parents are are not empowered i think they're beautiful uh but i'm grateful that i had my mother to do whatever she is doing karen you've seen so much success in continuously success and in your dark life you actually battle with depression what did it really teach you and and what you want your kids to take away

20:03 from that it's a very uh valid question and i think it's a it's an answer that will of course differ from individual to individual i can only think about myself when i turned 40 uh uh you know actually this happened when i was about 42 uh i started feeling like there was like some kind of a change and shift in my way of being uh i started sleeping very little i started feeling like every time like the

20:32 phone rang i felt like like like there was something there was an anxious feeling within me uh there was a seeping anxiety i started feeling not sad because i believe depression is not sadness because sadness and happiness are transient emotions you go from one to the other depression is an altogether different phenomena that you have to deal with it's just where you don't feel like you want to get out of bed and it takes you that while to creep out of bed

20:55 have your shower and face the world and you haven't slept enough so you're also exhausted emotionally and physically but also you're like and then you have this people's person that has always been kind of the life of a party and then you're play acting that same part but you don't feel it you actually want to leave that party and go back home and just go into bed watch random television read a book and just not be with people and actually

21:20 the what you're known for so you're fighting your own reputation in a certain sense and you're doing that because you you care about what people think uh but actually you shouldn't be so you're going through that inner turmoil and i knew that i was going through something that was a part of maybe a midlife not a crisis but it was like a midlife point of some kind of breakdown and i needed to address it i didn't i spoke to a very

21:45 dear friend who advised me to speak to a psychiatrist i met her she was a wonderful lady um i had many sessions with her she felt that need that i had to be on some kind of medication and it took me two or three years for me to kind of go through the beats of that phase of my life then i weaned off that medication and i'm so much better for that now what can i say to anybody else all i can

22:10 say is a vigilance for self and vigilance for people around you not just your child but yourself first you have to know you're strong within first you have to know the difference between sadness and depression sadness as i said is momentary and transcend it's like i'm sad this job didn't happen correctly i'm sad this project didn't come through i'm sad that i didn't make the money i thought i'm sad i'm not looking good today i'm sad

22:34 i'm not feeling good today but the next morning i get a piece of good news and i'm happy that means what i felt was sadness and what i'm feeling now is happiness depression is not sadness and anxiety is not fear because fear is altogether different from anxiety anxiety is when you really have no control over what your inner emotions and you start feeling anxious at the ring of a doorbell at the ring of a phone or at like a person walking in

23:02 and asking a question or meeting people you don't want to meet like 20 people at one go and you feel restless you feel anxious you don't know why address that and see it and for teenagers especially parents who have teenage children it's creeping into them a lot technology is doing that to us you know you know uh whether it's instagram or twitter opinions followers feedback the way you look the the way you're told to look like it's like all that you know

23:31 when you have body issues you have more you have you know kind of you have issues to do with your personality your sexuality you have so much going on i believe parents need to constantly look at their child if they've locked themselves up in a room for too long if they're blocking people from walking in if they're actually behaving different than what they were behaving please make sure that you identify that situation and seek help because you're helping

23:55 your child mental health is something that we do not give enough time to enough attention to and enough knowledge of you know nobody reads anything about mental health and it's treated in a way that is so insensitive not only in our country in so many parts of this world and i'm glad the world is waking up to the fact that it's as much a problem like you you immediately rush to the doctor with a with a cardiac issue or with a diabetes

24:20 issue or with a neuro issue uh with the pain in your body your knee or back and you'll go to the best doctors a specialist you'd seek assistance you'll vitaminize your body for whatever you need to but mental health you don't understand it's as much of an issue in fact if not more um and i believe you have to be vigilant for self and your immediate environment so i'm only telling you that again i seek help

24:43 because i believe that's that's what you need to do and i identified it and i was able to seek help and i'm glad i did and i'm fortunate that i could but there are a lot of others i see around me who are not doing that there are parents who so we as a community and i don't know if it's a thing being in our country but we tend to brush things under the carpet emotionally a lot because we believe

25:07 you know we believe that when you brush a big issue a gharkai issue or an emotional issue under the carpet it'll take care of itself but understand that that dirt that you have brushed under the carpet or that baggage that you brushed under the carpet is going to just solidify become even bigger larger and eventually you're not going to have be able to control it so i believe very strongly addressable and acknowledgement of issue is the first step to improvement

25:36 what prompted you to have kids what led to that decision and how has it changed you as a person i've done everything as a result of my instinct i knew that at a certain age when i i just needed to kind of go into the 2.0 version of my life emotionally and i felt that that me parenting was going to be the next stage of my myself you know and i feel like and i know that you know

26:01 that could have been up and i had to be honest and say partially it may have been a selfish decision because you know that eventually you're alone and you want the comfort of people to love you like you were loved you know by your parents and you want that love for yourself which sometimes the kind of love that children can give a parent or parent have given their children is a different kind of unconditional love that you don't get from a partner a

26:23 romantic partner a spouse or a relationship you get that from your children and i speak that i wanted that because i was so loved by mind and i was the only child i wanted that for myself uh so maybe 50 of my decision was selfish and 50 was because i believe i was ready for it emotionally so i took that step uh i'm not sure whether um selfishness is the only reason to have children because it probably is not

26:51 but in my case i can't lie to you because i can't lie to myself this it centered me i i was a little um all over the place in my head and i feel like i have a ton of vision for what i want emotionally and professionally now and i think my kids have done that they've given me a center um you know and i believe that that center will shows me a path you know when you go

27:15 left and right you still don't follow one path you keep going all over the place you go into a zigzag zone of life i think when you get a center within uh you have a path ahead that you can just walk on and i think i found my center with them there was not a day through this year and it's been a tough year that i i slept with a heavy heart only because i had put them to bed right

27:38 before that and it just kind of is like a calming soothing bombing effect on your wounded self you know it's like you may have the wounds through the day but you kind of sleep knowing that you wake up to that hug and that kiss and that feeling like almost it's like it's like you're going through a rough pace and you see their face and you feel like ah nothing nothing matters like i mean no troll can do to me

28:08 and combat the love that i get for my children i just believe that that nothing anyone says in the world can affect me anymore because i feel i have them like they have given me the empowerment emotionally that i believe absolutely no no turbulence in your life can you know kind of kind of shake you up with what's your parenting style and how does it fit in into the work well i think it's important to kind of

28:31 like sometimes it's tough because your children are always you know being naughty or kind of you know kind of stepping out of the zone of your discipline but somehow i think you set the motion right from the very beginning they fall like my children let me tell you because they know they have to sleep at a certain hour they don't combat sleep at all like they don't like they know like in many times they say dara

28:51 it's time for us to sleep now leave the room like you know they know because from the beginning i said this is the time you sleep you have to sleep at this time no matter what your sleep it's gone in the head so i think sometimes being like a broken record has worked in and my mother saying that again and again and again don't do that don't do that don't do that has gone to the head and

29:09 also i believe shouting and screaming is not something that actually has ever worked with me when my parents when i was raising and i don't think i believe like i believe we believe that that temporary nature of shouting and screaming at a child will actually resolve that issue i think a stoic silence goes a long way like you said and say i'm not happy yash or ruhi with what you just did i'm not happy they would still continue but it's gone in

29:35 their head that that data is not happy and they'll find their way back to you to do something cute because they know that they've upset you so i take a very silent but upset tone and i take and i go distant from them i don't either come nowhere close to them i show my unhappiness in a very strong silent manner and i believe that's really worked so my style of parenting is never to scream never to shout to discipline

29:58 with strength and silence as opposed to screaming shouting and constantly badgering them with your with your like i believe it's worked for me you've got your biography this uncertainty boy you've got the children's book what's next well what do i plan to write next i i do believe that an unsuitable boy which i wrote um you know definitely warrants a continuous uh kind of i think energy ability but if 2000 if 2020 was any indication i feel that

30:29 there's a lot more that can come so i'll wait it out and write part two of that book maybe in a couple of years but what i do want to do is the big thoughts of of little kusha next you know because uh in the illustration i want to go the girl's perspective we've done little love now we're going to do little kushan and i hope that i'm allowed to eventually do that there are many books on gender

30:50 stereotyping what what do you think sets yours apart uh i haven't read many other children's books based on stereotypes uh so i can't tell i just think that mine is really deeply ingrained into the way i think the indian parenting operates because you know i think we have different cultures for and you know i think the west has parented their children in different ways and then how we were raised so i've kept it very to uh the

31:17 country the book i think is very representative of what we are as a community of people and how we were raised in the in the in our country and uh i believe we've kept that traditional aspect of parenting versus what i believe is the progressive way of parenting and balance that so i would say the usp of the book is that he's deeply entrenched in parenting in india you know and i feel like like i'm not

31:40 sure if there's another book like this in india and if there is i'd love to read it but i believe this is representative of what we are as parents and i hope that that resonates with with every indian parent every asian parent what advice would you give to parents of teenagers during this pandemic well again i think it's important for you to occupy their minds and not just their you know uh it's like because i know that a lot of teenagers are going

32:06 through a lot of inner angst because they've been blocked into their homes they haven't been able to and they're seeking only viral assistance for a window into the outside world which is not always healthy so i think you have to inculcate a way that they can actually occupy their minds by you know taking up online courses learning something and you know making that feel exciting for them something that could be a passion of theirs that they that

32:27 they take up that makes them feel good i tell a lot of my parents of parent friends who have like teenage children that please don't allow them to wither away and watch just ott platform work and just be on the phone on instagram or just constantly like on like whatsapp video calls with their friends because it's gonna make them rust away and it's gonna make them sadder i think they need to kind of work towards doing stuff that

32:51 engage their minds through this pandemic i think they need to learn um a lot of a lot of available learning is there online and i think that i would encourage parents to encourage their children but not to do it like a pressure but something that they would enjoy if you know your child is a good singer tell them to you know kind of you know hone that craft a music instrument anything online that kind of makes them

33:12 enjoy what they're doing but they need to do a lot of that because otherwise they might just you know kind of um feel very stilted in this environment two kids love cindy food they love siddhi kadhi and chaval and aloo took because you must know that my house i'm punjabi my father's punjabi my mother sindhi so i'm both and but my food habits are all sindhi i've got them all for my mother so sai bhaji and sindhi curry are very regular

33:37 features in this home so my son loves it my my daughter for some reason it behaves like she was not born here because she likes only pasta she likes only italian food and so there's a there's a food conflict that we always so we have to balance it always they think they're watching your movies in the virtual room you know yeah literally it's like i know all your lookouts so i don't know i don't think they've

34:00 seen anything i think she's just got this taste of like wanting pasta and spaghetti and doesn't like dal chawal or siddhi curry and rice and like so we have to keep constantly you know making lay making her also get there because eventually you have to like all kinds of food uh but yes there's a lot of sindhi food being cooked for the children as well from the abundance of having so much so many materialistic pleasures how

34:23 do you make sure that your kids are grounded i'm failing miserably in that department a question that needs a wrestle for all parents but i'm feeling deep and my mother is not happy with me because i am i have spoiled them this year like and i think i've made them very very like like wanting more things because i've given them because i just i was at home through the year every morning on a night and i just i now i'm i'm kind of

34:47 facing the brunt of it so i'm going through that dilemma of of not giving them a new thing every day because uh you know when we've things talked away that we kind of don't show them and give them but you know sometimes i just can't help myself because i'm so excited for that toy myself that i want to give it to them or that garment that i want them to wear i'm being so idiotically selfish about material things because i want

35:12 them this happiness that i get when i see their faces light up so i'm as i said i need to change that about myself i need someone to answer that question for me about what i should do because i'm really failing in that department so i have no answer to give you but just i need assistance that's where my mother's values actually do come in because she balances it as much as she can and the only fights that

35:35 she's having would be rather with my mother's ever fight it's a one-way fight she fires me and i listen that's how i was raised even at 48 i'm like my head is down when she's screaming at me and i don't say anything so she's told me she just took me aside two days ago and said karan i'm not allowing you to give them anything and you are not going to interfere the moment i find out you've

35:55 given them something new that's it so and that's it meaning i don't know what she means the punishment i'm going to get is i'm a bit worried because she said that's it because i know she can't walk out on me and uh and i know that she can't do anything to scare me but she gives says it in such a scary way that i'm actually really worried now because i'm scared of my mother i still am and i'm like at 48 she has given me a

36:16 real telling off too so i got a ba and when shahrukh tells you that gauri days gauri did that but let me tell you shah rukh i don't think listen to that budget given and he did more and i've seen him do that you think you see i think shahrukh is the best parent i've seen in terms of the time he gives his children and the passion in which he's been into them so he's like my role model parent

36:36 so i think the one wrong thing i may have got from him is the indulgence three things you would love to tell moms and dads out there the first thing i tell moms is don't always annul the opinion of the dads because sometimes they actually do say things that could be relevant uh many times not so learn to save the good from the bad but do that process listen to the dads at times also the other

37:04 thing about moms is that uh what another mom does may not apply to you so don't always look over your shoulder to what another mom is doing you know because there's advice in the mother's groups and i'm part of some whatsapp groups is in abundance and you get very insecure when you feel another mother is doing this but i am not like that other mother's putting my the the child in ballet and football and x and y

37:32 is in i'm not doing all three don't be insecure do what is your instinct and what you can do what you can perhaps emotionally afford or monetarily afford or just what your instinct tells you don't look over your shoulder don't don't do like don't do like impressionable parenting because that's where i think that a lot of moms and dads i think you know suffer from that like us you know it's like no what applies to that household and that particular

38:00 parenting may not apply to you so don't feel lesser if you haven't done as much for your child as someone else is doing uh that's the second piece of advice that i would give mom and the third piece of advice i would give moms is what i have wrote in the book is please uh allow them to breathe fluid energy allow them to actually interact without putting them into boxes you know please don't put your children into

38:27 boxes because the more you do the more they will remain there you know allow them to breed what you say what comes out of your mouth is very critical so before you open your mouth to them give it a bit of thought that's what i do and i that's my advice to parents in general but to moms as well because i consider mine i consider that i'm a mom and a dad so i'm also a mom so uh yeah and yeah

38:51 that's what i would say thank you so much for chatting with us karan it's been an absolute pleasure and i'm so glad that we have this conversation you've really never spilled the beans and let us eat in your parenting journey so i'm so glad uh that we chatted today and i'm telling you it was indeed an enriching conversation for me thank you and my love to everybody who has tuned in uh thank you so much and i hope that

39:14 everyone takes the piece of this book and in their own way inculcates them in their parenting processes thank you