decisions are tough(keeping fingers crossed)…

A decision which is irreversible and impacts everyone in my life scares me. I generally put off such decisions indefinitely or leave it to DH. Poor DH takes the trouble of helping me out with suggestions and then gets an earful from me for not considering some minuscule possibility or overlooking something that was so important to me that I myself would not have paid attention to it for quite a while. Jokes aside, returning to India was one such difficult decision just because it impacted K’s future and she had no say in it. It did scare me at first and as always I did try to pass it on to DH. But then, we always knew in our hearts that we wanted to return. Both of us unanimously voiced our opinions on the pros of raising our precious daughter in India. There is one thing that really mattered to me and that was my family and their presence in K’s life. For that, I was willing to give up whatever it was that the future held for her in the US. I did feel guilty making the choice for her and also was apprehensive about her losing out on the opportunities that the land had to offer her. I was hoping that the choice we made was good. There is no right or wrong in this decision and whatever the case, we hoped it made a difference. And then, we packed up and left and for once I can say that I made the decision to move back and DH supported me fully in this decision….

Here we are away from the land of opportunities. I am now looking at the next generation Indians and feel like a fool for even thinking that K will be losing out. Kids in India these days have the same level of exposure and opportunities as kids anywhere in the world. More and more parents in India are able to afford giving their kids the extra edge. Lots of students are getting to travel abroad to widen their outlooks and also to study. Most schools thesedays emphasiseon extra curricular activities along with their curriculum and also focus on it at school so we don’t have to necessarily drive them from class to class  There are a multitude of options to choose from once it comes to activities – painting/art/music(both Indian and western), instrumental, Chinese maths, tae-kwon-do, karate, dance(all Indian forms and western), fun science classes and much more. There are a lot of outdoor fun activities that are catching up as well. Is there anything that K is missing out by coming back? I don’t see anything amiss. As an added bonus, she gets to see her aunt every week and her grandparents every month!
We will never know the true impact of our decision for at least two decades now but I’m hoping that whatever the loss per se in terms of opportunities are made up in terms of culture and family values. I would rather have her sacrifice a few opportunities and have her in a social setting that will give her a strong identity and a background that she can truly relate to.