How Early is Too Early?

AT THE PRESCHOOL that I run (where I also teach), there’s a certain action song we sing that goes like this:

Cook like mummy,

Yum, yum, yum, (repeat thrice)

Let’s have fun together!

Drive like daddy,

Knit like grandma,

Cough like grandpa….

…and by the time we come to “Be like teacher, Shh, shh, shh!” I’m ready to pop a vein.

Education and The Single Woman

MY MOTHER IS a cost accountant. Only the third woman in all of India to get a certificate of practice when she received one, and the first in the Western India zone. She gave her last costing exam while working full time at the age of 28 and then finally deigned to marry my father, her boyfriend of nine years, who had been waiting patiently for her to complete her desired education. At the age of 24, I was done with two Master’s degrees and accepted to a Ph.D. program scheduled to start a few months after my 25^th birthday. Thrilled to gain admission to the Social Science program of the #1 School of Public Administration in the United States, I called home to share the news.