A bit of everything..

Disclaimer: The following post may come across as morbid and boring. You may skip it if you wish to.

I haven't had a holiday in a long time. My weekly offs are consumed by the course I am taking. I am not complaining. That's a life I've chosen for myself and I quite like it. I've taken two additional leaves since my sister is leaving. I am not too happy with her imminent departure. I know I am being unreasonable. Someone up there was kind enough to get her stay extended by invoking an airline strike the day she had to leave. Just doesn't feel enough :-)

It's after ages when I got to wake up obnoxiously late, and read the Sunday newspapers. That's something I love to do. Again I'm content as everything in moderation is perfect for me.

But there's so much in my head that just refuses to settle down. 

How fair is it to live your life through your children's? Expect them to be an exact replica of yourself or someone else's children? Expect them to have prim and proper manners and never voice their wants or needs? To always adjust and to always be submissive? Is it only when children have the above "qualities" can you call them obedient?

If someone were to ask me, I'd say that even though your children are your own life and blood, they do have a life and mind of their own. They are unique and can never and should never be "like" anyone else. Taking care of children goes beyond feeding them. There has to be an emotional connect wherein the child can confide in you and not worry about how you'll react and make life miserable for the child. 

Many parents aren't too wrong in their approach as they don't want their children to go astray, develop bad habits and end up in bad marriages. But somewhere there is a gap between what the parents think is right and the children's point of view. A huge gap. The times where the parents generation grew up was different. Times now are different. What was unacceptable then is acceptable now without killing the essential values. Some values, traditions and opinions need to be discarded outright because they are serving no good. Others have to stay where they are. What was relevant four decades ago may not have the same relevance today. Why is that generation so caught up in what others will think? When others clearly are leading their own lives which are too busy to deeply think about what's going on in yours? If something feels right to you, how does it matter what your neighbor or relative thinks? When they aren't with you in your times of trouble?

For most parents, children will always remain children. I would like to think this idea is very dogged. On one had you want children to be independent and responsible human beings and on the other hand you treat them as children who are incapable of making their own decisions. How old is old enough? When do you know that you have to let go? Why is letting go so excruciatingly difficult? Why must you feel the need to control every move of your child when your child has never given you an opportunity to distrust his or her doings? When they have always acted beyond their age in terms of maturity? When they have always been submissive and never shown one instance of bad judgement? When can you trust your children to make their own decisions? Right from what clothes they can buy to who they can marry?

Have you noticed how the things that appeal to you now, continue to appeal to you even when you grow up? The music you heard, the food you ate, the movies you grew up on, the values that you were brought up with? With age, there comes a reluctance to accept anything new. You will still stick to what you like best and not explore the new. No harm in doing that. But the problem arises when you want your children to adhere to what you think is best too. No deviations allowed. Has the realization ever dawned how stifling and suffocating it can become for the child?

Alright, and why such morbidity and parenting talk, when I haven't even been there and done that? Let's just say I wish to leave that unanswered :-) Just random thoughts which wouldn't settle down until "probably" they were put down in words.