It is said that every time a child is born, innocence is renewed in the world. But the question then arises – how does one nurture this innocence with conscious care? Tech enthusiast Ritika Subhash, founder momfairydust – a platform enabling parents to share experiences – speaks about parenting in this new-normal age.
During her internship days and also her working experiences, Ritika Subhash, Director of Schools, Indian Subcontinent, Mangahigh.com, has closely witnessed the automation in healthcare system that can lead to time-saving, money-saving and revenue-generating solutions. Finally, in 2011, Subhash started her journey with the ed-tech industry – using technology for conscious parenting.
When asked about the importance of parenting skills, Ritika says, “Parenting has a long-lasting impact on a child, and on their potential contribution to society, it’s a responsibility for lifetime. However, there is no best course of nurturing a little life. Rather I would say, it’s a huge struggle because as the child is growing, so are the parents. And, this we need to acknowledge as a society. We need to be less critical about parent faltering and more conscious about what is important for raising a child.”
Corona times have come up with different layers of education. The mental pressure on students remains the same including mugging up textbooks to get good marks. To change the idea of digital education for a better tomorrow, Ritika shares, “Corona period is actually a wake-up call to say – What skills do really matter? What kind of skills helped us survive and thrive in these tough times? This is a time to reflect upon what really worked? And schools need to introspect on those and understand whether they are successfully preparing the children in building skills, which will help them to thrive in the future if tough times like Covid strikes again.”
Ritika has also authored a book – ‘Let’s Talk About my Feelings’, – that talks about experiences that children and adults go through. Stating the back-story of this book the author recalls, “As I became a parent, I started to connect myself from the perspective of a child, and therefore many situations that a child generally goes through started unveiling. All these had a common connection, full of feelings and emotions. I felt that in order to bring in emotional intelligence into parenting, parents need to understand and increase emotional vocabulary. So, I started my journey of writing this book, with a cluster of poems and illustrations.”
An engineer by profession, an author and a story-teller by passion and a responsible active mom, Subhash adds, “Juggling between so many roles is not easy at all, it’s tiring, it means a lot of compartmentalization to happen. To maintain a balance between the roles one need to have a sort of structured working schedule.”
Speaking about her website, momfairydust that believes in simplified parenting, she says, “It was initially a blog, and it’s something I have done from my heart. As I truly feel for the cause of parenting and feel as parents we have real good intentions yet we make so many mistakes on the way. Least we could do is support each-other and be a part of the community, which shares experiences, and in the long run, I want momfairydust to be that ‘ go to place’ for parents and engage in deeper conversations.”
Stating about the ideal relationship that a parent and child must share among them, Ritika says, “It is important to build trust, to fall back on someone, to have faith in the relationships. I believe that if the parent could share their mistakes or imperfections or accept their failure in front of their children, this would help children open up to parents and talk without inhibition.”
Signing off, Subhash mentions about wellness of both children and parents, “Wellness should be priority of the parents and at momfairydust and I invite suggestions from more people to share their experiences on wellness at momfairydust.”
With challenges popping up at every stage in this new-normal world, all we need is to keep calm, adopt ourselves to the changing times and learn from the environment rather than indulging in any rat race.
