The Art of Parenting

Last week was a real hectic week – My husband’s sister, her husband and 4 year old son were with us on the last leg of their vacation before they returned to the U.S. With 2 kids at home, it was complete pandemonium. The kids were playing together, fighting for the same toy, stepping on each other and shrieking, all at once. Till now, I was under the impression that the most difficult and trying part of parenting was till age 3. Logically, I thought, this was the age by which most kids could at least communicate their basic needs. From infancy to this point, whenever a child cries for something, we parents respond to it through their guesses, which at times may not be quite intelligent. So the ability to express themselves, one would assume, would liberate the children from most of their problems. This last week cleared away all such delusions as I saw my nephew’s tussles with his parents.

For the first 2-3 years, the problems are because we don’t know what the kid wants, and after that I guess it is because we know precisely what they want :-).Strange are the ways of nature! I have heard lots of people say “After you have kids, life is never the same again” with a note of finality in their voices.It was one of the clichés that you kept hearing, I thought when I was young. Like many mothers of my generation, I am an “Internet mom” – from the early days of pregnancy, I was constantly reading up on the baby, its development stages and the do’s and the don’ts, trying to equip myself fully for any challenge that parenting would throw. But little did I realize what I was in for, until I came face to face with it. At times, I have found parenting to be trying, frustrating and even daunting experience. A little bit of introspection would probably reveal that parenting is one of the ways we fulfill this need within us to grow, to become better human beings. For most of us, the entire experience reshapes us and moulds us into better individuals. Parenting, in that sense,is as much about our growth as it is about that of our children’s.

After my daughter was born, I don’t remember taking a single step, be it giving her a medicine or buying a nappy rash cream, without checking it up on the internet. But there were times when the soundest logic does not work with your child, the seemingly sure-to-work steps will backfire. This, I think, is one of the most beautiful aspects of parenting. It has taught me humility and acceptance. A year ago, I would have guffawed at any mom who would have told me that something doesn’t work with her child. Today, I know that there are some things that you cannot change, some things that cannot be controlled.
Another great thing about parenting is the emotional security that it provides. Here is this small person, who loves you unconditionally, who doesn’t care a whit as to whether you are clad in rags or dressed to kill, and loves you the same either way. Here is one person who reserves for you the sunniest of her smiles and the tightest of her hugs. Who would not want to come home to that kind of love?
And yes, parenting has definitely changed the way I look at the world – when I hear the word “child abuse” and read about how some of the young children are exploited, my eyes well up with tears because I see my child in them. And I am moved to do something for them.
There are so many other small changes in me after I became a mom – parenting tinkers around with you, toughens you up a bit here and softens you a bit there and makes you laugh and cry in this process.

Reams and reams of paper have been dedicated to the topic of parenting and a Google search would throw up a plethora of writing in this area. But there are 2 pieces of writing that I like best.
One of them is what the great Kahlil Gibran wrote in his book “The Prophet” – this I think is the best-written guide to parenthood:

“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”

The other piece, although not comparable to the first in any way, is something that I really love for its succinct expression of how a child would remember a good parent. This is Arundhati Roy’s dedication of her book, “The God of Small Things” (which went on to win the Booker Prize) to her mother, Mary Roy. It goes thus:
“For Mary Roy who grew me up. Who taught me to say 'excuse me' before interrupting her in public. Who loved me enough to let me go"

If my daughter would grow up and think of me thus, I would believe I have lived up to the role of being a mother. The most poignant statement here is the last one, that talks about letting go – It takes a lot of love to bring up a child well, but I believe it takes more love to let them go on their way, to make their follies and learn from it. That, I believe, is the litmus test of good parenting.