00:00Pranam Acharyaji. I am the father of a high school daughter. The pressure that she feels
00:07is that some of the other girls are more better in, I am unable to come up with the word Adai.
00:17If I do not know what kind of highness is possible, then any kind of lowness will become
00:23the gold standard for me. The danger is very real. Some Pari will become her idol. I want
00:31to be like Pari. And then she will drop her dancing, her sports, her recitation, her poems,
00:37her elocution, her passion, everything she will drop and she will just start chasing
00:41boyfriends so that she can stand up to somebody like Pari. I call these nodes of evil. They
00:47are not too many, but they are highly influential. Pranam Acharyaji. I am the father of a high
00:58school daughter and I have just one daughter. And probably I have tried to raise her exactly
01:06on the lines that you have always told me. She is very good at studies. She is a fantastic
01:14dancer. She completed her Arrangetram and graduated in Bharatanatyam already. She is
01:22in her high school basketball team. She knows how to play musical instruments. She wins
01:31poem competitions every year in her school and amongst all the regional school districts.
01:39She was recently selected into one of the top high schools by clearing an entrance exam.
01:48And you won't believe the pressure she has because in the school that she was selected,
01:54there are more girls than boys actually. So the ratio is a little squid. And the pressure
02:02that she feels is that some of the other girls are more better in, I am unable to come up with
02:11the word Adai, that the other girls have boyfriends in there, but she is more focused in all of that
02:20thing. And how do I convince my daughter, I would say, how do I raise my daughter so that she
02:26doesn't feel that pressure even though she is doing better in all the life. And second thing
02:32is just related exactly to that is how women are unable to do is, think about it, at the same time
02:41when the soccer World Cup was happening last year, everybody was glued only to the men's Argentina
02:48in cricket team and how Messi was playing, which is great. I am not against Messi here. But at the
02:54same time, the Indian women's cricket team was also doing really well. And nobody was discussing
03:01that at all. And I feel sometimes it is not, I feel that women themselves do not watch whether
03:09it is women's cricket or women's basketball or any of the women's sports. The day when women will
03:15start watching women's sports and support women's sports activities, they themselves will do well.
03:22So, there are two questions, one at the generic level and one at a personal example level,
03:29that's what my question was. You see, the standards have to be set very high.
03:37It's like when you exercise with 15 kg weights, after that the 5 kg ones, just stop mattering.
03:58The standards have been raised. Similarly, she has to be introduced to women who really are
04:10worthy of being remembered. And then her internal standards will rise to a point where she'll stop
04:19caring for the stylos and the hipsters. Otherwise, if she feels that these are the only ones available
04:32in her world to compare herself against, obviously she'll feel left behind or disadvantaged.
04:43So, standards have to be very very high. And why must you allow your environment to dictate your standards?
04:51Let those standards come from books and documentaries and videos and other places. Books primarily.
04:59If she, for example, spends an entire week reading the life story of Marie Curie, how after that will
05:11she afford to give respect to a certain, let's say, Pari. Pari in her class, who is a dimwit from here,
05:26but is fantastically regarded because of her body and her style and her dressing and her boyfriends.
05:36After you have been with Curie, how will you respect Pari?
05:44That's the thing. That's why education is the real thing. Give her real solid role models
05:53and then she will become not just disregardful, but disdainful of all these typical teenagers.
06:12That's what. If I do not know what kind of highness is possible, then any kind of lowness will become the gold standard for me.
06:24That's why reading is so important. Otherwise, anybody in your environment will come and influence you and boss you from within.
06:35And it happens a lot in school and in college. Some local kind of stud just becomes the dominant hero.
06:50And who is he? Worthless chap. But he can take away a very large chunk of your mind and life.
06:59We all know of these people from our college days, don't we? Some random worthless fellow.
07:05But he dominates the scene in the school, in the college, in the university and he dominates it so much
07:12that he can influence a lot of his batch mates to take wrong kinds of decisions.
07:24Inductive effect, no? One wrong role model, one very mediocre but powerful,
07:32mediocre but powerful and attractive and glitzy.
07:37And this fellow becomes the impression creator, the goal setter and he induces a lot of batch mates
07:50into the wrong kind of attitudes, lifestyle and ultimately wrong life decisions.
07:56And that can be taken care of very easily. Just give your daughter the right role models.
08:04Give her great books. See what her preferred mode of assimilation is.
08:11If it's visual, take her to the right documentaries, the right movies.
08:16See how she likes to absorb information and give that to her.
08:20Give that to her. And there are just so many names.
08:25We have talked of them frequently even on AP Circle.
08:31Women worth respecting, women worth even worshipping.
08:37And they exist, they have existed in history.
08:40Why must we not take note of them? Why must we not introduce those glorious women to our daughters?
08:47But that's not being done. Mainstream education is not doing that.
08:51Alright, let fathers and mothers do that.
08:56Otherwise the danger is very real.
09:00Some Pari will become her idol.
09:04I want to be like Pari. And then she will drop her dancing, her sports, her recitation, her poems, her elocution,
09:11her passion, everything she will drop and she will just start chasing boyfriends.
09:15So that she can stand up to somebody like Pari.
09:23I call these nodes of evil.
09:27They are not too many but they are highly influential.
09:33They set the bar.
09:38They have to be fought against.
09:40And they can be very young.
09:43Typically we don't want to associate the word evil with a teenager.
09:49But the reality is, yes, even teenagers can be evil.
09:53A 15 year old can be evil.
09:57That does not mean that the 15 year old has to be killed.
10:00That means that he has to be corrected.
10:02Maybe as parents, you and her mother, you need to sit together and first of all figure out
10:13who are the names you must introduce your daughter to.
10:21Is she reading something from Sarojini Naidu?
10:24If she is interested in Hindi,
10:28has she been brought to Mahashweta Devi or Mahadevi Verma?
10:35The names are comparatively fewer when it comes to women.
10:40Fewer but they still exist, don't they?
10:45For 10 male poets, you will have 4 female poets as well and 4 is sufficient.
10:51You introduce her to these 4.
10:54You have freedom fighters, you have scientists, you have politicians, you have sports persons.
11:00In all walks of human activity, you do have women role models.
11:06And young girls must be introduced to them.
11:09Otherwise they will simply chase boyfriends just as boys chase girlfriends.
11:15And they will dress up and try to act adult and get into all kinds of nonsense.
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