Babi Amaranath - Hardwork and Respectful Parenting
I have been following Babi on Instagram for some time now; it was her video on her stuttering that caught my attention - she spoke about it in such a positive and optimistic manner that I was hooked on all her other videos. It was so easy to love her energy and outlook towards life – it’s positive and yet realistic. Too often, too many people I come across on Instagram have a very pseudo-positive approach towards life; one where they deny every and anything negative that can happen to someone. Babi’s perspective is more of “This is what I have been given, what can I do to make the best out of it?” Which is exactly the kind of energy I like from someone – that combination of optimism, determination, and a sense of faith that they can get through this. I was wondering whether I should invite her to be a tenacious woman when she did an Instagram Live with another person which shocked me on how much Babi has actually battled in life. It made the respect I already had for increase by tenfold. I messaged her soon after asking if she would like to do a tenacious woman feature – imagine my surprise when she declined saying she doesn’t deserve to be here! After some gentle nudging from me, Babi agreed to do the feature and that’s how we have her as tenacious woman #14! We had done the live segment in Tamil, so this is the translated version of the transcript. I hope it makes you love Babi as much as I do.
Why and how did you start this Instagram journey?
I thought if you want to be on Instagram or YouTube, you should have a business, a good family, or things like that. Because that’s how the people I follow on Instagram and YouTube portray themselves. And I thought “Well I’m not like that.” Some are blessed with such a life and it’s okay. But it’s also okay for those who aren’t. We are all accomplishing or overcoming something in our lives, so I thought why shouldn’t I talk about my experiences and share my life as someone who doesn’t have such things! And that’s how I started my Instagram journey, to share my experiences and about childcare. And I found that when talking in Tamil, it reaches those who need it more – like the people in India or Sri Lanka.
Is that why you chose Tamil over German for your content?
I started with YouTube. So, I used to do content in Tamil on YouTube and in German on Instagram. With time, more and more Tamil speakers started messaging me, saying what I shared was helpful or requesting I share more. There are people doing content in English and German already, so I realised that when doing content in Tamil, it will reach those who truly need it. More than that, it’s easier for me to talk about my emotions and thoughts in Tamil. I learned English and German in school but still, I find it easier to say certain things in Tamil. It feels like it’s from the heart.
Where do you get your ideas for your IGTV and reels?
Reels is based on what happens in everyday life. I would be doing something, and something would occur to me. IGTV requires more planning, especially since I talk about sensitive topics like violence against children. I can’t talk about such topics on the spot because both victims and abusers might be watching so I plan such videos ahead of time. But, I don’t have much time to plan! I spend most of my time with my daughter, who’s 2.
Your Instagram is focused on motivation and self-development. You also talk a lot about childcare. You were even recently certified as a childcare worker. How did this interest come about?
I have been interested in this since I was young. In Tamil families, you always have children around you, in the form of cousins. Children have personalities just like us; they have needs and wants just like us. But just because they’re small in size, we decide what they need for them. There are some things we have to decide for them as the parent and the adult, but children have needs too; like my parents should listen to what I am saying, I don’t have to be like this child. And I personally think we don’t give much attention to such needs. So, I wanted to bring some form of positive change or do something about it and that’s how I stumbled into this field.
You have a bit of stuttering. It’s not something spoken much in our community and it’s often used as a comedy tool in Tamil cinema. So, can you speak a little about what stuttering actually is, how they diagnose it, and what treatments they offer for it?
I don’t have a bit of stuttering, I stutter a lot! *laughs* I don’t know much but this is what I gathered from my own research. Some have it since they could start speaking. They can’t speak at the speed they’re thinking so they stutter. In such cases, the stuttering would go away by itself after some time. Some have trauma-induced stuttering and that’s where they lose the clarity and fluency in their speech. You can get a diagnosis from the doctor when you’re young. But if you don’t tell your doctor or therapist about the trauma, they will look for a different “cause” for your stuttering issue. And sometimes parents don’t share the trauma with the doctor or therapist, and they don’t let their child speak about it either. So, such trauma-induced stuttering, where stuttering is caused by abuse at home or when the child doesn’t feel heard or feels pressured to speak from parents, can be harder to identify because the child might express it differently. I went to see a speech therapist, they identified through things like play and asking me to read a book and identifying where and when the stuttering happens. Apart from stuttering and the physical demands that come from it, we have the psychological challenges as well, like wondering what people think of us. Sometimes we know certain words make us stutter so when we have to say such words, we start getting anxious and look for a different word to use. But you can’t always find an alternate word. The quicker we find the problem, the easier it is for us to change our speech pattern. If not, we will be stuck in it, and it will be harder to change.
So, you were primarily given exercises to manage your stuttering?
Yeah. Like reading in front of a mirror, reading out loud. A variety of things like that.
What can we do to support a friend or family member who has stuttering? So, you mentioned there needs to be a more honest conversation from the parents. What else can we do apart from that?
When we speak, some would tell us to speak slower or, to take a deep breath before speaking or try to “encourage” us by prompting us excessively. Even though they might be trying to help, our mind and body is under a lot of stress at that moment. So, when we are struggling and someone tries to advise us, things become harder. For children, parents tend to try and get them to speak “normally”. This is not helpful. I also think when someone asks about their child’s pattern of speech, parents should not add on to it. Also, as you said just now, stuttering is often used for comedy in Tamil cinema. It’s nice to see stuttering in mainstream media as a form of representation, but it’s quite disappointing to see the way it has been used.
So, we all tend to have insecurities about ourselves. Sometimes, something doesn’t even have to be a negative quality about ourselves but we still label it as such and shrink ourselves. How can we mitigate this or stop shrinking ourselves altogether?
I am still on this path myself! I wouldn’t say I’m there already. If you ask me, there’s an illusion about the perfect life: going to school, getting a car, a phone, finding a perfect partner, getting married, having a child, and raising the child with ease. We all have our struggles, we all make mistakes, many mistakes, but we keep looking for this perfect life. When doing so, we won’t be satisfied with what we have now. We won’t see something as “I have worked hard to receive this”. We will compare it with what someone else has. This makes us lose a sense of clarity about ourselves and our lives. Especially with the advent of Instagram and Facebook! Previously, we would only compare with our friends or cousins. Now we compare ourselves with people we don’t even know! With people living in entirely different countries! And we want to be better than them when we don’t even know if that’s how they’re living! We have so much information on our hands as well these days! We can learn something that took our grandparents a month to learn, in a day. Back then, when doing something as simple as waiting for a bus or train, we would stand around and let our thoughts flow, which would allow us to figure out what we want. Now, we take out our phones and use them! So, there’s not much opportunity for that sense of clarity. And this is why we have so many insecurities. I regularly stop and ask myself questions like “Am I okay?” “This person has this thing, okay but, is it something I need?”, “What can I do more of?” So that’s what I would say. Take time for yourself to assess what you need and if you’re happy with what you have.
You have fallen A LOT in life, you have been hurt, and you have been on medication for depression and anxiety. How did you find the will to pick yourself up each time?
For many of us, it’s a struggle to get through the day. We only see maybe 10 minutes of someone’s life on Instagram. For some, there are so many struggles in just getting up in the morning and going to school or work. I don’t know how but somehow, I have the power to get through something. Every time I think “This is it; this is the hardest thing I have to do in life, and everything will be fine after that.”, something bigger and harder comes up. So, I look back at my own life and tell myself, “You got through all this, this is nothing.” I remind myself that if I had the strength to get through that, I can get through this. I also look at people who are accomplished. I love Oprah Winfrey’s story. She didn’t have a family, she didn’t have someone to shower her with love at a young age, she lived with her grandmother and took her life in her own hands. It’s our challenges that become our accomplishments. When the problem is in front of us it can be daunting, but once we have overcome it, it can be a lesson for us. When we look back at our own lives, there are so many things we can learn from and all that can act as the motivation we need.
I had anxiety, panic attacks, I saw a doctor and was prescribed medication. But, they only helped to manage things at the time they were happening. When looking at things long-term and when looking at the future, there were things I had to change. At one point, I stopped taking the tablets to work on myself, to learn what is okay and not okay, what I want to do next in life. I don’t know if it’s the right thing to do, but I spoke to myself repeatedly and that’s what helped me overcome things. That’s also how I decided I wanted to share my journey on Instagram. We have everything we need in us. It depends on what we heard growing up. If you kept hearing things like “You can’t do this”, “Don’t speak”, “It’s enough if you only did this”, you start thinking like that as you grow older as well. We can’t blame or fault our parents for these either; they are trying to improve from their parents, the struggles they had, or the trauma of the civil war in Sri Lanka, for example. They are doing what they can and what they could. We have so many resources right now and we should use that to identify what we can change, to grow from the ingrained patterns of our childhood or traumas. If the thing we do now doesn’t give us a solution, hopefully, it will bring about change in the lives of the next generation.
Do you have any tips for someone with depression or anxiety on how to cope? It must be so difficult to keep going once you have become disillusioned with life. So, what do you think we can do to keep on?
Sometimes we tell someone, “If you think this is a problem for you, look at them, they’re handicapped, they’re homeless”. It works for some but it doesn’t help others. They wonder why their problem is not a problem. The words we speak reach different people differently. Everyone has the right to live in this world; there is a reason why we are here. Previously, I used to wonder all my friends were happy with their parents while everything was upside down for me. Now, when I look back at things, I realise if I didn’t have such experiences, I wouldn’t be able to understand the experiences of another person. Sometimes, something might seem like a small problem to us, but to someone, it could be the biggest problem in their life. At that time, we should show some empathy and understanding. When I look back, it might have been difficult at that time, but now that I have overcome it, it’s an experience for me. No one should wonder why they are still living, we all have such moments, but you look at how celebrities commit suicide. They have everything but they lack something. We all have something missing in our lives, but no matter how difficult it is now, in 5 years or 10 years, when you look back, you would be able to see things as “This is what I struggled for? I have overcome it!” Not everything that comes our way is to challenge or weaken us. It teaches us something, it brings us to the next step in life.
It is still a bit of taboo in our Tamil community to see a doctor for depression or anxiety, to take medications for them. What do you think each of us can do to stop the stigma attached to mental health at our generation or the next generation?
Everyone should talk about it. We don’t have to overshare the problems in our life. We are all living a normal life and we have our ups and downs. If we shared the reality of things, it would be easier for us to live. We all have our problems so we don’t have to show that our life is perfect. We don’t have to list the problems out either. But, if we all talked about having challenges: things like losing your job, not doing well in school. These are all normal things. It would be easier for everyone if we didn’t sweep them under the rug.
Is that why your bio says “it’s okay to talk about how you feel”?
Yeah! Like we hear things like “We shouldn’t be upset”, “We shouldn’t laugh too much”, “Don’t show your feelings”. This is especially so for boys. We don’t have to say I’m upset because of this, we can say I’m upset. We have to normalise our feelings.
Your depression and anxiety are things of the past. Today, you have dedicated yourself to talk about motivation and self-development. If something didn’t go the way you expected to today, how do you manage your emotions?
Let’s say we live for an average of 70 years. So, say I’m 30 now, I have 40 more years. If I don’t have something now, is it going to matter in the 30, 40 years I have left? Why should I take time away from that to focus on this? Another thing I do if I don’t get what I want is this exercise. I imagine gathering people I consider inspiring like Oprah Winfrey, this spiritual guru I follow in a room and holding a meeting with them. I picture myself telling my problems to these people and asking them for their advice. I would imagine how they would respond and the words they could offer me. I would ponder on all that and make my decision based on that.
At the end of the day, what would you like to be known for?
When someone is having a difficult day or time, I would like for my video or something I said, to ring true for them and help them. Or I would like to be one of those people in someone’s room for the exercise I mentioned above! When someone is down, I would like to be the person who inspires them to think “This too shall pass”. Another is to be friendly. We all have our struggles and our problems. And I want to be that person who is kind, friendly, and supportive and there for them at such a time.
What does the word “tenacity” mean to you?
Like I said before, we need a certain strength to get through the 24 hours of a day. As women, specifically as the eldest daughter, we have to bear our problems and that of our parents. We have to bear all that from a young age and we always take responsibility for another person’s happiness. We prioritise someone else’s happiness over ours from a young age. We shrink ourselves in fear of hurting or offending someone else even if it means we will be unhappy or hurt. I think we shouldn’t live a pretty, perfect life for others. We should listen to our instincts and our needs. So to me, “tenacity” is when we start living according to our intuition, or even simply decide to do so.
This just occurred to me, you said we all need a certain strength to get through the 24 hours of a day. Do you mind sharing how you are instilling that strength in your daughter?
More than school or grades, I want her to listen to her intuition. That will guide her for life. If she focuses on what she's thinking, how she feels, she will be able to go through the right path in life. When I’m feeding her and she says it’s enough, I will stop. I won’t pressure her to eat more. Because she needs to be able to identify whether she’s hungry or not, whether she has eaten enough or not. Of course, as her mother, I worry whether she has eaten enough, but I need to respect what she’s saying at that time. So, that she’s able to think about it. I do this a lot. I ask her things like, “Do you want me to change your pampers?” “Shall we go out?” If we are going to read books, I pick up 2 and ask which one she wants to read. If we are going out and she needs to get dressed, I get 2 and ask which one she wants to wear. She needs to be able to identify what she needs. But, I am the parent, I am still the one helping her achieve the decisions. Take for example when I'm driving my daughter, I can ask her whether we should go this way or this way. But I am the one driving; that is in my hands. I have to give her the feeling and confidence that she's coming along on this journey with me, but she should also know that Mum is driving the car. So, it’s about striking the balance between the two. That’s why I share things about childhood. It’s not about reading all the books there are on childcare and parenting. We all have that intuition as mothers and fathers. If someone tries to carry my daughter, she might say no. Because I’ve taught her since young, to say yes if she's okay with something and no if she's not. This way, she will be able to protect herself out of our home; she won’t follow someone just because they asked her to, she won’t eat something someone offers her. It’s about the little things you teach from home. They will ripple across other things and in the future.
You empower her to make her own decisions?
Yes. It would be difficult in the beginning because it takes time. If I say wear this and this, I can get her dressed in 10 minutes. When I give her choices, it could take 20 minutes or maybe even more. But if we spend this extra time now, she can have the confidence to decide things for herself maybe 10, 15 years later.
What advice would you give the woman who is still trying to find her passion or niche?
It’s difficult! For the most part, we are told what to do from a young age. For example, our parents would bring us to Bharathanatyam (dance) classes because the neighbours’ kids go for such classes. So at some point, we stop thinking about what we want. It was really difficult for me. There are 2 ways of living. One is to enjoy and actually live life to the fullest. The other is to live with a survival instinct because we don’t have the time to think about anything else. There is so much fear, anxiety, anger, hate, the thought that nobody likes us, what we do is all wrong, to say nothing and wish for nothing, to live with what we have. I have lived this way for so long that after finishing school, I didn’t know what I wanted to do, what to study next. I ate what I had, I did what was in front of me. I didn’t know what my favourite colour was, what my favourite food was. It was difficult to recover from my childhood; it was the hardest. If you want to figure out what you want to do, imagine you have all the time, all the money, and no one to please or comment on what you’re doing. Then ask yourself what you would like to do. Or if you have small desires like learning how to play an instrument, try it out part-time and see. You have to keep trying. If you take an onion, it has many layers. We are like that; we are deep within and the layers are things like society. Some don’t have very many layers, so it’s easy to peel and identify themselves. But some have so many layers so it will take that much more time. Don’t feel bad about that and take your time to shed your layers to find out what is it you want.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
How can we block the comments of others when raising our child?
I get so many comments! “Don’t pamper your child” “Why are you having your child make decisions now?” If I don’t put back something where it was, my daughter will tell me. And I get comments like “If you let your child speak to this extent now, how will she speak later?” If we know why we are doing what we are doing when it comes to raising our child, why we are investing so much energy and time in this child, that’s more than enough. Because the people who comment now, will come and ask you tomorrow about how you raised your child, saying things like “What did you tell her!”, “How is she able to speak well!” It can take 4, 5 years. So, don’t think about that. If you as the mum or dad know where you’re steering your child, it doesn’t matter what others say. Let them speak. It’s easy to speak. More importantly, when someone comments about your child, your child is listening to what you’re saying. So, never talk about your child while your child is around. That is important. My daughter doesn’t get along with everyone right away. So if someone asks why my child isn’t mingling with ease with other kids, I tell them, she will as long as she’s okay with it. It’s not completely the truth but I’m not going to say “Oh no it’s hard for her to! She’s shy, she’s scared!” I say all this with ease now but it’s actually hard for me too!
You can learn more about Babi through her Instagram!
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