Which of us don’t fear? Don’t waver? Lose interest and want to run away. All of us do, again and again and then what is that will take us to a feeling of achievement, sense of inner calm and sense of joy in being who we are?
I am no guru, yet, life in her inscrutable ways has taken me to paths, twists and turns, I would not have ventured on my own. Bewildering me, breaking me into tears and gathering me in her arms, showing me hope and a reason to smile that I learned to live and be happy about who I am.
I look back and I see how life journey has moved me from one turn to another, (yes, even the life of an average Indian woman can be dramatic sometimes, ) posing challenging questions to me, egging me out of my comfort zone, and asking me to march ahead. I have felt lonely at times, many times, yet today as I see it, I know I have done justice to roles I took, causes I believed in , to people who leaned on me and have been able to leave behind the bitterness and embrace life with a smile.
I must have been in my 12 th standard when I heard one of my aunts disparage her partner with hurtful words, which in turn reflected her own feeling of misery and pain, I remember thinking I will never want to be a grumpy old woman, never.
But what brings the sense of calm to me today, is my learning to live in the now, constantly re-orient myself to the present moment, ask myself, what are you thankful for now, today? Having asked that question, a sense of immediate relaxation enters my mind and I regain my calmness and smile.
So, I decided that it is just role to simply do the best I can in every situation,, what my daughter calls a ‘breakthrough performance‘ every time in the various roles that I take up, well, try to do that at the least.
As I detach myself from my past and worries about future, I have noticed that there is no rancor in me, no agony, though sometimes, deep pain overwhelms me and I let it pass, because I ask myself, what is that you are feeling now, allow it to happen, you can cry, feel angry and feel happy at different times, it is ok then regain the composure that I am so loving these days.
LifeI have decided is a process that allows you to experience and allow your soul to blossom to be its true self.
Yes, this new found courage to affirm my positivity has found me new friends, and hopefully new experiences .
Today, as I seek experiences, even new friends, maybe, I realize that I don’t seek anything make me happy but only to add to my already existent and thriving source of inner happiness,
The title is strong and perhaps skewed but that does not hide the fact that parenting is and often becomes a ‘power play’. A space for smart deals, ‘I did this for you, now you do this for me’.
‘How much have I sacrificed for you, can’t you do this much for me’?
Years of popular culture of idolizing the parent has made the lives of many young people miserable, that of course includes parents, who were themselves miserable living for other dreams and not having space to think or plan their life on their own.
Now the parent, being in a position of the provider tries to extract maximum benefit to satisfy his needs some times material, emotional, social or otherwise and cleverly packages his/her aspirations as a target to be achieved to the child.
Ok, so I have also been guilty of the same and have been tempted to go down the lane far too often.
One day though, in all my right senses , I told my daughter, ‘Child, sometime in future, maybe, your mom may become so needy, so dependent on you or just seek your attention so much as to dare to emotionally black mail you, then my love, you will stand only by what you feel and go with your intuition or your reasoning. You will not allow any of my manipulations to have a say in your decision ‘ and heaved a sigh, a long one at that. It was not easy to do that but I knew this was important. If there is one thing that teaching has taught me, it is to respect the young and trust their wisdom, worldly and otherwise.
I had not thought much about this until I read the Khalil Gibran poem,
And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children. And he said: Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness; For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.
I was shocked at the truth in these lines. And remembered how ancient wisdom prevailed on the need to treat an adult son or daughter as just that, another adult, who has an independent mind and soul and dream of his/her own.
Some among us parents, consider child- upbringing a ritual of grand sacrifices and responsibility, yes, it is but we need to ask ourselves, ‘was it not our choice to do so?’
‘Did we as parents do what we did for our children out of love and because it gave us joy in doing so?’
‘Did we not derive pride and joy in thus showcasing our children to the world?’
‘Was the joy only theirs? Really!!!?????
If we think this over, and find that the reason why we lavished love/ materials/ attention on our kids was also because, we wanted to , sometimes even more than what the child would have wanted, then it becomes crystal clear that, if the process was enjoyable, what is the point of taking a ‘grand stand’ of nobility, unlimited sacrifice etc?
The numerous videos that flood the social media of the supreme sacrifice or sense of duty every animal possesses towards the upbringing of its off spring should tell each one of us parent, is somehow genetically tuned to protect his/her offspring for reasons beyond our control, yes, there are exceptions, but aren’t they far too less to the majority of us who would give our right hand to do justice to our children!
Read on to know what the famous Tamil poet, Thiruvallvur said in his famous poem penned a good 5000 years ago on the subject of parenting….
In his ever relevant poem called Thirukkural, a lesson in life skills, written a good 5000 years ago, the Tamil poet gives the following commandments to each parent.
*If your children lie to you often, it is because you over-react too harshly to their inappropriate behaviour.* 2. *If your children are not taught to confide in you about their mistakes, you’ve lost them.* 3. *If your children had poor self-esteem, it is because you advice them more than you encourage them.* 4. *If your children do not stand up for themselves, it is because from a young age you have disciplined them regularly in public.*……read more at
Yes, we are all but humans, but it would do us good to ask ourselves as conscientious parents, am I in the right, when I ask/ advice this to my child?
Parental hegemony has and will continue to create unhappy adults who never got a chance to do what their heart called for, live with who their love chose to be with, or just be happy individuals in general.
As I talk to quite a few 18 year olds, they all seem to have decided that ‘making their parents proud’ is all that want to do or even, ‘fulfilling their dreams ‘. Yes, the parent has every right to give suggestions about career and other life choices, but just leave it to the child to decide what he/she wants to do.
Reading between the lines one can also clearly understand the enormous pressure of living up to someone’s dream that the child is facing already. Sometimes this leads to unhappiness, confusion and a general feeling of unworthiness, which can be detrimental to their happy state of mind, even many years later.
Do we really want our children to carry the baggage of our unfulfilled dreams or do we have the confidence to tell that that ‘fly you may, love you may, explore you may, just know that I am here for you!’.
Adhyapika 