A father and daughter go about their morning routine, with a brief discourse on leadership, hierarchy, satsang, and education.
“Good moring, Papa!”
My 5 year old daughter Iti hasn’t yet mastered pronouncing “r” and “n” together – an endearing idiosyncrasy in this otherwise well spoken child.
“Good ‘moring’ my darling!”
I scoop her out of bed in a practiced motion and cover most of her forehead with a kiss. She rebuts with an open armed leap promptly engulfing my head and topped off with proud giggles against my ear. I disentangle myself from the monkey child and carry on.
“So, what do you say, shall we go about our morning routine, First Mate Iti?”
“Aw do I have to be First Mate today, Papa? I want to be Captain again!”
“Haha you made a wonderful Captain, sweetheart.”
One palm wrapped around all the fingers she could grasp – a grand total of three – and the other clutching her infant-sized toothbrush, we make our way downstairs to the kitchen.
When Iti learned that my day started well before hers, she insisted on adapting my morning routine so that it became “our” morning routine. Now we make “breakfast” together every day.
“You made such a good Captain, I thought you might like to try being First Mate. Do you know what a ‘First Mate’ is?”
“No” Comes the sheepish reply.
“Haha okay, so what do we do first?”
“Ask the question!” Iti jumps in the air with both arms raised and an enthusiastic smile.
“Papa what is a First Mate?” She asks, still hopping.
“Hmmm” I catch her mid-leap and whisk her up to eye level, so she is resting against my shoulder and chest. We move to the terrace overlooking the ocean. Almost every room in our house faces the ocean. (Major perk of having two incomes in a marriage: excellent real estate options.)
”Well that’s a great question, Iti, and I will answer that. But I know you can ask a better question.” I encourage her.
Intrigued by the challenge, she responds with a “Hmmm” of her own. A wave of pride and joy washes over me, a pleasantly regular occurrence around my daughter. I love seeing her take on traits from my wife and myself.
She strikes with a classic pose, fingers partially over her mouth, eyes looking down and to the side. I can tell she is deep in thought, looking at ocean the way we all do when we need it to hold space for us. It is the largest canvas we have to let thoughts coalesce.
I hold the silence, with no reason to rush her, and genuine curiosity about her next question
“Papa?” Her gaze shifts from the ocean, and into focus as she looks me in the eyes.
“Yes, sweetheart.”
“Why do you want me to try being First Mate?”
I beam with joy and she knows she’s asked a very good question. I plant another kiss on her forehead and turn back to the kitchen. The view and the ocean, having shared space with us, also shared cold winds that made me long for hot coffee.
“That is an excellent question! I’ll tell you as we start making our beverages. What juice will you make this morning?”
Our division of labor is clear: I make coffee for me and Mom, Iti makes juice for herself and for me to inevitably finish in the afternoon.
Her blending style has elevated considerably since she started using the blender on her own in recent months. I supervise, but otherwise don’t get in the way of her concoctions. The ingredients come from a pile of fruits and veggies in a bowl on the kitchen island, and the inspiration comes from everywhere else. She also prefers not to blend the fruit too much, so she can attack the chunks with her waiting spoon.
“Apple and carrot!” A classic choice, inspired what my mother raised me on.
“Aww Grandma would love that – let’s send her a photo later.” We break into matching smiles.
We continue in relative silence, as both father and daughter immerse ourselves into our practiced routine.
“You made an excellent Captain and we had a lot of fun that day.” I recalled the adventures of ‘Captain Iti and First Mate Papa’ from the previous week.
“But a Captain is a leader and the best leaders know the responsibilities of every person they are responsible for. The best way to do that is with experience.”
“Oh. So to be a good Captain, I should be a good First Mate?”
“Yes, but not just that. You would also need to know the role and responsibilities of everybody else in the hierarchy of the ship.”
“Hire arky?” She asks, hanging onto every word the way I hung onto Aladdin’s every word at her age.
”Ah.” I have a habit of using ‘S.A.T.’ words – as my friends used to describe any word with more than three syllables. I try not to censor myself around Iti, after all, she has already been exposed to so many languages.
She won’t have any trouble expressing herself in life, once she learns the differences among ‘expressing oneself’, ‘being understood’, and ‘communicating’.
In the meanwhile, I support her interest in an improved diction – it certainly leads to some interesting explanations!
“It kind of means ‘chain of command’ – the order in which people are responsible for things that need to be done to reach a goal. On a ship, one of the main shared goals of everybody is to survive and come back to land safely. Everybody has different roles and responsibilities on the ship to make that happen.”
“And the Captain has to know what EVERYBODY does?” Comes her wide eyed response.
“Yep! Being a leader is a huge responsibility, but one that is very fun and fulfilling – especially when you do it right.”
“So I can be a better Captain by knowing more about what everybody else has to do to help us achieve our goal!”
“Yep, but that’s only if you want to be Captain. If you don’t want to be Captain, then you only need to know your responsibility and how it fits into the bigger plan.”
“But that sounds so… boring! Why wouldn’t everybody want to be Captain!?”
“Haha it may sound boring. But people are motivated by very different things in life. ‘Success’ means different things to different people. And the more people you are responsible for, the more work and pressure it is.”
“All this to say, that your mother and I will always support you to dream big, my sweetheart. But we will always encourage you to dream dreams that are yours. Not mine, your mother’s, or anybody else’s.”
“But Papa I want to make you and Mumma proud of me!”
Recalling my childhood, I recognized this as another opportunity to break the cycle of emotional damage passed on between generations. It’s a cycle we’re all familiar with, and have all faced at some point. I vowed to myself the day Iti was born that I would not subject her to the same cycle of damage that society imposes on every child. It’s a combination of toxic masculinity (and its manifestation as the ‘patriarchy’) mixed with traditions that people follow without understanding why and how they were formed.
A solemn look at my daughter stops her midway through adding a strawberry to look back at me.
“Beta.” Her ears perk up, and a slight furrow appears on her little forehead, because she knows I use the Hindi for ‘child’ when I’m being serious.
“If you can be happy, healthy, and secure in anything that you do, you will make Mumma and I the proudest parents in the world. More than we already are! We are SO proud of you and we love you so much!”
There. Cycle broken. Never miss an opportunity to tell your child how proud you are of them and how much you love them.
“I love you too Papa!” She pops the strawberry into her mouth and launches herself at me again. I put the coffee grinder down just in time to receive the fury of love and strawberry as she concludes with “and I’m so proud of you and Mumma too!”
She goes back to blending and picks up the conversation. “So hierarchy is a way to organize people from most responsibility to least responsibility, and on a ship the Captain is on top of the hierarchy, with the most responsibility, and the First Mate is next – so has the second most reponsibility?”
“Blam!” Impressed at her summary I raise my hand for a high five, which she enthusiastically meets with a satisfying “thwack”.
“And if I want to be a good Captain, then I should know what responsibilities everyone else has, especially the First Mate.”
“Yep! Full marks!” She raises both hands in a gesture of vindication and understanding.
I place my wife’s mug on the island and sip the heady coffee vapors from mine, as one does with a fresh mug of coffee. Both vessels were made and decorated by our daughter – glazed at a pottery class we went to last year. Iti pours out her smoothie into a glass, as usual there is enough left for at least two more glasses – I’ll get to those in the afternoon.
“So, what do we have today?” I grab the blender, peck the top of her head, and open the fridge door to cool my daughter’s creation for the afternoon.
“On today’s docket…” (I really don’t know where she gets her material from – children really are sponges!)
“Blueberries, strawberries, mango, pear, and banana”
“And apple and carrot.” She added with a impish but confident smirk.
“Haha, you are more like Grandma than you know.” I smiled at her, thinking of my mother’s predilection for adding to and changing her recipes with every preparation. “I don’t like making the same thing the same way every time.” I remember her telling me when I was Iti’s age and playing the role of her little helper monkey.
She beamed back at me and took a big gulp of her colorful drink.
Then the dawn finally breaks. Watching my wife descend the stairs in the morning is one of the highlights of my day. She radiates joy and satisfaction as she surveys our shared kingdom and the familiar scene in the kitchen.
“Mu-mma!” The exclamation started next to me, continued through a hop off the chair, a bounce off the ground, and into my wife’s waiting arms, finishing with a wet, juicy kiss on the cheek.
“Mumma you’re so beautiful!” These simple but powerfully affirming words had turned into a ‘moring’ greeting in our little universe.
“The most beautiful.” I chime in with the usual awe, wonder, astonishment, and barely noticeable (I hope) lust for this goddess. Our own morning routine still fresh in my mind, I struggle to stay in the moment.
“Oh thank you my darlings!” She returns a kiss on Iti’s cheek, leaving a full imprint of lipgloss on the sparse surface area. Our angel promptly checked today’s flavor as my wife continued. “I love you both so much!” My wife continues as she returns my gaze and winks at me.
‘My insatiable devotee…’ the words echo in my ears from our own morning greeting not that long ago. But the wink snaps me out of my daily trance. I get my mind, reluctantly, out of the gutter and go get my own sample of today’s lip gloss flavor from my wife’s lips.
“Hmmm“ I retreat long enough to say “Mango – my favorite!” before I go in for seconds, encouraging her to put our child down and give in to my embrace. Letting go of this woman is the least favorite part of my day, but we agree that both of us should work. Not to mention how much I love the stay at home partner, and cabana boy for this amazing woman.”
Fully aware that my 5 year old is watching I don’t follow through on any of the ideas this muse inspires in me. I bite my lower lip to get more Mango, while watching my wife regain her composure, let out a quick sigh, and smile back at me. “Good morning again, my love.” Finishing with a wink that sparks another split second of animal that only years of training and control allow me to subdue. She knows the effect she has on me, and the feeling is very mutual.
Sure, we argue just like any other couple, but we have been aligned on the important things in life since before we met. It’s a wild story – but that’s for another time.
Holding her hand, I’m the happiest man on the planet for the short walk to her waiting coffee mug. Iti returns to her juice, all the while smiling at her parents, clearly still madly in love with each other.
Mom’s not a big breakfast person either, but she always takes fruits with her.
I exited the 9 to 5 employment cycle before Iti was born and enjoyed running some business and projects from home. I normally plug in for a few hours in the evening when my wife is back from work and gets her quality time with Iti.
After she leaves, Iti and I go about the rest of our morning routine.
“What do you reckon – ocean, pool, or hot tub?”
I know it feels like I’m spoiling this child – but again – it’s important for a child to understand choice and develop a sense of agency that extends beyond “I want…” to “I want… ____ because…”
“Ocean!” A true water baby – just like her mother.
“Okay gear up and let’s go!”
On the walk back from our frolicking, my little monkey has climbed onto my shoulders, and is resting her chin on hands resting atop my head.
“Okay shower up and meet me in the glasshouse?”
”Yep!” She rushes off.
This is one of my few moments by myself, and Iti knows I need 20-30 minutes to get ready. I go through my own routine and emerge showered, shaved, and dressed in the comfort home office wear that took over the during the pandemic before Iti was born.
The glasshouse is a room – but we call it the glasshouse because all it’s walls are made of thick reinforced glass. It also looks over the ocean and houses our garden. Iti is particularly good at caring for the orchids her mother loves.
Iti has watered all the plants and turned down the tint of the glass to make it comfortable. I find her sitting in the middle of the room, cross legged and looking out at the water, again deep in thought.
This is the favorite part of my day. “Satsang” is a Sanskrit word that combines “sat” or “truth” with “company” or “sangat”. In more spiritual and traditional circles it involves more routine, timing, and rituals, but for me and Iti, our time in the glasshouse is “the companionship that leads to truth”.
She asks me questions that are at times simple, and at times complex. These discussions have taught me that the simplest questions are often the most complex to answer. As any good teacher would say, I learn just as much from answering her, as she does from my responses.
I am not yet ready to disturb her, so I do my sun salutations outside her line of sight. After a short savasana (corpse pose) I emerge and take my spot next to the mulling monk monkey child sitting next to me in deep thought.
To be continued in: “Answering Iti” Chapter 1: What is Language?