Parenting skills, a skill learnt?

Mrs Chatterjee vs Norway (2023)
Director: Ashima Chibber

I remember another case involving a Malaysian couple working in Sweden on a diplomatic passport in 2014. They were charged with child abuse when they smacked their children with a bamboo stick (probably rotan) for not reciting the Quran. The parents were imprisoned for instituting corporal punishment on their children, something unheard of in that society. Even though a Malay proverb surmises that 'one should live by the law of the land' (di mana bumi dipijak, di situ langit dijunjung), this obviously, does not apply to Malaysians in a foreign land, furthermore when it involves propagating religion to the generation next. There was a barrage of condemnation by netizens upon the country that decided to persecute their guests. A columnist in Malaysia even called Sweden's long remand period "a travesty of universal justice". The parents, upon return, after completion of their incarceration, received a hero's welcome.

So the question is, what is good parenting, one which spares the rod or uses it judiciously? The one in which the elder sibling also takes cognisance of household responsibilities and caring for her younger ones or the one where parents bear all responsibility for nurturing kids? Even within similar environments, siblings turn out differently, so how can there be one mould that fits all kinds of formulas? Who decides what good parenting is?

Many Eastern parents believe in the old adage of 'spare the rod and spoil the child' and 'action speaks louder than words' to steer children into submission to traverse the moth-bitten path they and their parents had taken. All the talking and reasoning are only in civil situations. Behind closed doors, words and utensils would fly. 

Since 1979, many developed nations, led by Sweden, have banned spanking and all corporal punishment. The Scandinavian way of parenting would encompass spending as much time outdoors, dividing parental duties, accepting gender neutrality, having liberal views on nudity parents and no spanking. Spanking is confined only to the bedroom to the loved ones in the most passionate ways!

This Bollywood film puts Norway under scrutiny for its seemingly inhumane and invasive child protection policies. They went as far as to compare it to state-sponsored child abduction. In 2011, in the town of Stavanger, an oil-rich region of Norway, an Indian immigrant(expatriate) worked in the petroleum industry. As Norway's Child Protection service, Bernevernet investigated the family when the first child was thought to exhibit features of autism, the workers discovered that the parents were incompetent by Norwegian standards and subsequently recommended that the children needed to be placed under foster care till adulthood. The reasons mentioned were objections against their parenting habits, which are considered typical in Indian culture. Feeding by hand was construed as forced feeding; sleeping on the same bed was unhealthy; yelling at children was abuse, and parents arguing was a no-no.

'Mrs Chattarji vs Norway' is the recreation of Sagarika Chakraborty's and Anurup Bhattacharya's experiences, which created a mild hiccup in bilateral relations between countries. The top brass of the Indian leaders had to intervene to find an amicable solution. It seems that not everything is hunky dory in the land with the best indices for the happiest nation on Earth.

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How far would you go?

The Pathological Optimist (2017)

Sometimes people tell me that I have to wise up, that I have to be a man. When I don't budge, they add that I have a moral responsibility to re-act. I owe it to society to voice out. If a person of my standing did not, who would? Doing the right thing is not always about doing the likeable stuff. One needs to create chaos to maintain order. The serpentine opposing forces of yin and yang, of male and female, are not mutually exclusive but complementary! Chaos and order make up the eternal, harmony of the Eden of life.

I claim to love my country so much, but I do not think I would be willing to don jungle fatigues, drag around a rifle in the discomfort of the outdoors and deafening sounds of exploding gunshots. Probably not in this lifetime.

Would anyone go through great lengths to defend what he thinks is right; at the expense of peace of mind, creating a turmoil within his family, being treating a pariah by people by people beneath them who obviously do not know what they are talking about. All the things that he considered his reason for living, his raison d'être, ridiculed like he is a lunatic.  Just how far would he hold on to his conviction?

Andrew Wakefield, a Consultant Paediatric Gastroenterologist at Free Hospital in the UK, was having a comfortable life doing what he wanted to do all his life - to treat patients. The study he co-authored which implicated MMR vaccination to gastrointestinal dysfunction and neurological regression which appeared in a 1998 publication of Lancet changed all this. Even though ten out of the 13 contributors agreed to retract the said article, Wakefield stood steadfast. He reiterated that there was an association between the combined MMR vaccine and severe neurological symptoms. He suggests further testing and advocated single vaccines.

Brian Deere's investigative journalism work in the Sunday Times accused Wakefield of undeclared conflict of interest and manipulation of results. After a long process, Wakefield was struck off from the British Medical Register. He migrated to Austin, Texas. The topic of autism and its association with MMR as well as the increase in the activities of the anti-vaxxers' movement. Correspondingly, Wakefield's name gets mentioned every now and then in documentaries as well as in the mainstream media. It led on to multiple court cases against Deer and the BMJ to clear his name. Unfortunately, he kept losing all his legal battles and ended up paying the legal costs for the opponents. The many groups supporting those injured by vaccines keep on supporting him. 

Despite all the difficulties that Wakefield, his wife Carmel and their four kids have gone through, he is adamant about defending his research, denies monetary intentions or fraud and works with non-profit organisations related to autism. The periodic spike in incidences of measles is blamed on his movements.

This documentary, done in a very personal way, following Wakefield into his yoga class and his home, takes us to a time between 2011 and 2016 when he had to slug it out with the Texan court in a suit against the BMJ. The viewers can see a weary man fight with all he has for what he calls a 'moral issue'.

P.S. So much for love will keep them together fighting a good fight. 32 years of marriage of Andrew and Carmel Wakefield came to an end. Andrew Wakefield is now dating ex-swimsuit model of Sports Illustrated, Elle MacPherson, 54.

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Veiled altruism?

Plague of Corruption (2020)
Restoring faith in the promise of Science
Authors: Judy Mikovitz, Kent Heckenlively

The domain of caring for the sick is no longer solely in the hands of medical care professionals. Policies of treatment, prevention strategies and cure are not decided by the doctors and policymakers with a medical background. In the modern world, businessmen, philanthropist and Big Pharma are the ones who determine what best strategies to lay for mankind and where the budget for health should go to. These people are the new saviours of the world and pledge to have only altruistic reasons for the heroic journey. There is no business interest, they say. For this, they employed the might of media, print and cyberworld, to spin and repeat the mantra of doom and gloom that only these people can avert. The paternalistic approach of doctors and nurses is so passé.

The traditional advice of good food, fresh air and adequate physical activities is so archaic. Modern-day controlled studies show old preventive non-pharmacological measures so out of tune with modern living. Now, one needs to load oneself with chemicals, innoculate with a myriad of foreign antigens and compounds to spur immunity. Modern man is living in such a bubble that getting soiled with dirt and soil is unthinkable. If possible, he wants his gut to be sterile.

Judy Mikovits gained notoriety during the Covid-19 outbreak. A virologist by profession, she made many bold assertions about mismanagement of the viral epidemic by WHO, CDC and specifically Dr Anthony Fauci of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Her personal spat with authority goes way back to the early '80s with the discovery of the HIV virus. She was in the first American team of Robert Gallo and Frank Roscetti that isolated Montagnieu's HIV sample. Differences arose regarding wanting to publish the discovery. Along the way came patenting rights. In 2009, another controversy happened when Mikovitz suggested that XMRV
(Xenotropic Murine Leukemia Virus-related Virus), a retrovirus, which is linked to prostatic cancer to be the causative agent of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or Myalgic Encephalomyelitis. Accusations of stealing intellectual properties from the laboratory she was working landed in her arrest, frequent brush with the law and subsequent fall from grace.
She (and her co-author) hit the headlines again when they linked autism to the early administration (9 months) of MMR. The previous proposal of gut-brain connection in autism by Andrew Wakefield in a 1998 BMJ article was shot down as fraudulent.

Mikovitz claims not to be an anti-vaxxer but raises the possibility of our vaccines being contaminated as it goes through animal cell lines during its production. Monkey kidneys and other animal tissues are potential sources of retroviruses, and they can potentially cause many untoward side-effects to predisposed individuals. Vaccines also carry nickel, chromium, formaldehyde and antibiotics. Do vaccines with the zoonotic additives make human more prone to other viral infections, like the pandemic we are having now?

She highlighted the existence of special vaccine courts to pay out compensations to victims of vaccine injury. If vaccines are so safe, why is there such a court? Apparently, the vaccine producers are immune from prosecution by victims, but the court will weigh on the damage.

Dr Judy Mikovitz is not the only crusader around on a mission to expose the concerted effort by the scientific and political elite who run the scam that is our global health system. They hold patents to products and run pharma conglomerates to push vaccines and specific treatment modalities with vested interests on their minds. They manipulate research findings to suit their agenda. Despite holding honourable posts trusted to take care of the people's wellbeing, they are turning their high office into money-spinning ventures.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.