Madhavan explains why he revealed his cook’s salary to son Vedaant: ‘Your toy costs more than… ‘

Actor R Madhavan recently spoke about parenting his son Vedaant and how he managed to instill values in him. In a chat with Radhika Gupta, CEO of Edelweiss Mutual Fund, on on the YouTube channel 100 Year Life Project by ACKO, the ‘3 Idiots’ star revealed that he was adamant to teach his son the importance of gratitude. “It’s very important to know that they are privileged and someone worked their backsides off to provide them with their lifestyle,” he explained.

Madhavan Explains His Parenting Style

The ‘Minnale’ star also said that he told his son the salary of their cook, so as to make him more aware of his privilege. “What this toy of yours that have been gifted to you cost this much and this man has to work an entire year, living in that kitchen, to earn enough to afford a bit of that,” he said.




He also stated that he had brought up Vedaant to be respectful to people in blue collar jobs and treat them with dignity. He explained how he taught his son to refer to drivers, watchmen, with the title ‘didi’ and ‘dada’ instead of ‘aayas’.

“And I made sure that if the watchman came and said, ‘You are a very polite child, he always says namaste to me,’ I thought my job was well done,” he said.

He also recalled a valuable parenting advice he learned from a Canadian woman aeons ago which left an impact on him. He reminisced about how he was living in a Canadian town where issues like teenage pregnancy was rampant and he came across a family where the kids grew up to be stable adults. Curious he asked the mother once how she raised such level-headed individuals and she explained that she made sure her kids never had a surplus of free time.

‘Don’t give your child free time.’ She said, ‘You know, indulge him or her in whatever they want to do, as long as they’re doing it with passion. The interests will change, the level of commitment will change, but make sure that they don’t have free time till they’re 15–16 years old. just make sure that his or her time is filled. That doesn’t give them time to dwell on things that they shouldn’t at that age…” he recalled.

Madhavan was last seen in the blockbuster franchise Dhurandhar.