Yesterday was Ichu's vaccination day, and I had prepared her well enough for over a week explaining everything to her. She was excited to meet her doctor uncle. But as soon as she walked into his cabin, she fought hard not to cry. She reluctantly showed her Maisy book to him, where Maisy went to the hospital. As usual, her doctor burst out laughing, and she started bawling. Thankfully, he asked our nanny to take her out so that we could talk in private.

The first question he asked was how is her association with food. Momo and I replied with a double thumbs up. He was surprised and said, "That's great news." I immediately brought to his attention that we still don't give her refined sugar. He said, " That's the best news I heard today!". Every time we say no to chocolates or other sugar rich food for Ichu, we are often stared at amidst our close family. I understand we all grew up eating chocolates and ice creams. But hey, we have a generation that is taking insulin while writing board exams these days. Ichu does have a sweet tooth, and I cook Carrot halwa and palada whenever she craves for it, but with panakalkandam or jaggery.

He even asked how much screentime does she get. Raising a child with zero screen time is such a rare thing, apparently. And when I said she has a better library that I ever did, her doctor said, " This is the best parenting model ever." We gave her first book at the age of 6 months. Now she asks for books and I can't be prouder. The fact that our pediatrician mentioned how he has started blogging to raise awareness about how to humanize our children brings us to the whole point of how this generation is nothing but addicted to screens.

Currently, we are facing the biggest meltdowns at home with Ichu because whenever she steps outside, she sees a kid with a mobile phone. Every single family member that visits us will play with her for 5 min and then get back to scrolling on the phone. How do you expect her to remain calm when the entire world around her makes her feel that she is not as important as the metal piece in their hand. It's actually sad that kids have no choice but to ask for a phone just so that they can be a part of our family. It's the sense of belonging that they want.

How do we humanize our child when the rest of the world are turning theirs into robots. How do we humanize our child when the immediate family pays no respect to what we suggest. How do we humanize our child when she has to yell to get attention from others phones. How do we humanize our child when we are considered villians for taking a stand. How do we humanize our child?

The only time I don't feel like a failure