Tanya, our 17 year old, is graduating from high school. She has some interesting plans up her sleeve. She plans to take a gap year before joining Penn State’s college of science to study genetics. A part of her gap year will be spent on pursuing a course in solar tech from CPI, a local technical school. Seeing her hopeful excitement for the future totally thrills me. I love her chosen interesting fields of study.

The past few weeks were a roller coaster for her, and by extension, for me too. Transitioning from high school into a semi-adult life is hard. As a parent, it feels like the safety net of school is pulled off us, and she is freewheeling. Of course, this is not true, but school is such a big part of childhood that it’s ending is unnerving. Added to that, I had this feeling that in today’s society, Tanya’s achievements were overlooked. Of course, that upset me. But then I had a few realizations. The first being, hey, I haven’t celebrated her achievements myself. To address that, I have dedicated this post to her. Long post alert!

Tanya came to this world at 2 lbs. She was born at 29 weeks as a micro preemie on Aug 19, 2006. Then began one of the most trying fifty days of my life. Tanya was in an incubator at a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit for fifty days. And the hospital was two hours away from here! After fours days, I was discharged. As we drove off the hospital back home, I remember the feeling of dread. What?! Tanya is left behind(?!). I had just had a Caesarean and was recovering from very high blood pressure. So driving was out of the question. After a couple of days home, where I roamed around like an aimless ghost, my friend Amalie came to visit. She asked me, “so aren’t you missing Tanya?!”. I burst into tears. She was moved. After that my friends organized car rides for me to go to the hospital. I will be forever grateful to her, Caryl, Katie and Hannah for taking me there everyday for the next week. In less than two weeks after my Caesarean, I was driving to Geisinger every other day. We came up with a system. Johan left our red van with a bed in it in the parking lot of the hospital. I would drive there one day, see Tanya, sleep in the van, wake up the next day, see her again, and come home. In retrospect, I am not even sure why I came home at all. My parents had arrived from India, maybe that was a reason. Anyway, with that arrangement, I was able to see Tanya everyday and hold her against my skin. After fifty days, we got her home!

For the first four months my parents took care of Tanya. I was busy with my PhD thesis writing. They finally left a couple of days before my defense! Their visa had ended. I remember putting together my presentation with Tanya breastfeeding! It was quite an experience.

After my PhD, we had a setback. Johan’s father passed away. We went for his funeral in the Netherlands when Tanya was about seven months old. When Tanya turned one, I took up a job at a local Mechanical Engineering firm. However, I hated the breast pumping and general separation. I quit after fifteen days.

Tanya was always an easy child. I didn’t realize it then, but looking back I remember. We went for many road trips. Tanya just fit in, and it felt like three people on a trip rather than two adults and a baby. She easily adapted to all our idiosyncrasies. I worked only for one year outside of home (two hours away at Bucknell University). Once again, I hated it and didn’t take up another job until she was six.

We got our dog when Tanya turned three. Things hummed along, Leena came when Tanya was five and a half. Our family felt complete. We went through health challenges with both our premature girls, but thankfully nothing that was insurmountable.

Tanya was a quiet child and we ended up sending her (and later Leena) to a small charter school rather than the huge regular elementary school. The charter school had weekly field trips and wise ways of handling situations. We loved the small environment and felt that it would do her good. I have never regretted that decision.

Tanya was an excellent walker from the time that she was little. This may have been because we got Rosie dog when she was three. The long hikes on field trips were right up her alley. Even though her school was small with limited choices in friends, Tanya made a few strong friendships that have lasted her until now.

We always went on road trips, and took trips to the Netherlands and India. We were forever pulling our kids out of school. The alternative school was supportive, and even excited for us. But in 2019 we took the plunge and went for a five month long trip living in a bus and boondocking out west. Amazingly her school supported us and sent us study materials and read her blogs out during school lunches.

After this trip, Tanya moved on to Delta middle and subsequently Delta high school. This is another small, alternative school in our school district. She took classes both at the regular high school and at Delta.

As an immigrant who grew up in very high academic school standards, her school system baffled and frustrated me to the point that I wanted to pull Tanya out of school and homeschool her. Tanya may have realized that I would make good on my threat. Maybe to appease me or maybe out of her own motivation, Tanya started taking challenging courses at high school. We would sit down and carefully decide on her coursework each year. I battled with her school and have yelled at the administrators and her principal. You can say that I am not popular at her school(!). Oh well!

As she went on to high school, I noted that she would want to finish her work in advance. She did not wait until the last day. This was great to watch, since I have always been a procrastinator. It was lovely for me to see her working with diligence even on subjects that she didn’t care about.

Another thing about our immigrant, engineering household: like most immigrants and also most parents, we wanted our girls to appreciate and take up our field of study, which is engineering. I remember lecturing them many times and also getting upset when our girls did not show interest in mechanical engineering. But as years went by, I felt compelled to support them in fields of their choice. I now strongly feel that people in general, but women in particular, must carefully find a field they love and pursue only that, away from parental pressure. I say women in particular, because when they have kids and there will be motivation to quit work for the sake of children and family, a woman who loves her field has a better chance of feeling motivated to stick to her career.

Luckily, after many years of not knowing what she wanted to do with her life, Tanya suddenly changed. She took a keen interest in genetics after her biology class. Wisely she also took an elective in genetics this year to see if she still liked it. It turns out that she still likes it. So she plans to keep biology as her major and research in genetics.

In terms of academic achievements, Tanya excelled in her subjects ending up with a GPA of 3.87 unweighted and 4.19 weighted. In terms of extra curricular, she has done community volunteering at the arts fest that we have every year and community gardens over the summer. But one of her crowning achievements has been taking care of her dog Kylo. He is a rescue and a difficult German Shepherd. He can be aggressive to strangers. Since fourteen, Tanya has taken care of Kylo, including majority of his walks and behavior training with him. This is no mean achievement at all.

Tanya has a super temperate personality. She laughs and brushes annoying things off of her. Nothing seems to ruffle her. She always has a smile. She is very level headed. She is a stunning artist. In fact, she has excelled in every art form that she has tried, starting from hand sewing stuffies since she was eight, to painting in various mediums, clay modeling, resin art and animation. She recently made a lovely 3d printed candy dispenser after modeling it in Solidworks (an engineering design software).

Another realization that I had recently was how she was loved by her closest friends. A poem written by her friend, and a yearbook entry by her closest friend since elementary school made me realize that accolades come in many forms. While those grandly bestowed upon you by an institute are prized and sought after, they pale in comparison with a few beautiful words spoken by a good friend. A friend’s words bring out your true value as a person who has touched people around them. Her friends’ words truly touched me.

From being an impatient and immature mother, I have grown with Tanya to become a more calm and controlled person. My kids have been my teachers. Now Tanya is my friend and one that I share a lot of laughs with.

I am excited to see what the future holds for her. But what’s even more important is the current moment. She is happy, and that makes me happy. Life’s good.