My husband and I are raising our son — affectionately known as KB (short for Kutty Boy) — with gentle parenting ideals. The twist? Neither of us were raised that way.
My parenting style is basically: Tamil discipline + immigrant-child trauma + Instagram therapy reels.
As an Eelam Tamil woman, I was raised in full “good immigrant” mode. We were taught to be polite, quiet, grateful, and excellent at everything. Not because it was fun, but because they didn’t have the luxury of being anything else. Every decision — even what after school classes we attended — had the weight of reputation, community and survival. All three of us are doing alright, but like all parents I wonder what I could do that would make KB even better.
Now here I am, raising a toddler in 2025. I want him to feel safe pushing boundaries, exploring feelings, and having meltdowns over broken bananas. But I also don’t want to be that parent, partially-blinded as her child just threw sambal in her eye. Gentle parenting doesn’t mean chaos. And traditional parenting doesn’t have to mean fear. So, I’m aiming for a balance.
Tamil parenting taught me discipline, duty, consequences. Gentle parenting is teaching me connection, reflection, repair. But sometimes, that balancing act is wonky.
Tamil as a language is also my gentle parenting superpower. Like when I can see he's doing a silly dance and it's time to go to the toilet, I switch to Tamil. I don't want to embarrass him. Or if he is standing in the trolley at Sainsbury's pretending it’s a rocket and people are judging me for not controlling my little astronaut. I immediately switch to Tamil — so I can discipline him with a smile.
Then there are the very Tamil moments when gentle parenting gets put to the test — like during a kovil poosai, when KB decides to unleash his own remix of the thevarams, belting it out like he’s headlining Super Singer Junior. Within seconds, one of us (usually the parent closest to losing it) scoops him up or whispers “inside voice, kanna” and take him to the back, but no one actually stops him. Annoying? Maybe. Disruptive? Possibly. Hilarious? Absolutely!
If you’ve seen his Mama's Insta stories, you’ll know we’re weirdly proud. KB has somehow remixed Vanmukil Valathu Peyga and Sugar Melon. You're welcome. You get to pray in peace, and he gets to continue his freestyle poosai in the back row.
Who knows? What if he is the next Thirugnana Sambanda?
But don't get me started on sleep. Sleeping wasn't a big deal growing up. So I never really stressed over the independent sleeping thing like some of my British mum friends when KB was a baby. Well, now I’m stuck with a toddler who thinks 3 a.m. is prime monster truck role-play time. Why? Because, as he so wisely put it, “My kan said it’s not nitha time, Amma".
Raising a Tamil child today isn’t about copying what our parents did or rejecting it entirely. It’s about doing both — kindly, thoughtfully, with boundaries and hugs.
So that’s where we are. Somewhere between “You do you, kanna” and "this kelavi thinks you're a kurangu, sit down before she calls the police".
I want him to have the freedom to be curious about everything and confident in himself, all whilst being respectful of others. And who knows, maybe one day, he’ll use Tamil to gently discipline his kids at the back of a supermarket?
Gentle parenting doesn’t mean being a pushover. And traditional parenting doesn’t have to mean survival mode. So that's where we are, konjam kind, konjam strict. Always with love.
