From Parenting to being a Parent

 

After a gap of almost two years I went to a movie theatre last month with my husband in PVR cinemas at Lulu Mall. The movie was good with many action scenes and Bond did get a deserving farewell. Something that happened as we reached home was astounding to my husband and totally predictable to me.

As we had gone for the late night show it was well past midnight when we reached home, 1:55am to be exact. There, my mother was waiting for us to give my husband a post that had come on that day by mail!!!

 Unlike what I have been practicing all these years, this time I did not inform my mom of our movie venture beforehand. It was not like I took official permission every time I did something. But, it had long been my habit to inform everything to my mother before I did them, may be meeting a friend or taking my kids for an outing. However trivial the project my parents offered an expert second opinion on the task, which I was supposed to follow diligently. Sometimes I might be warned of the consequences of my deed, sometimes they disapproved of it and many a times they came up with alternatives. I obliged most of the time. Sometimes I acted as a typical ‘teenager’ rebelling and doing the thing my way.

This was a time that called for a teenage rebellion. I was sure my dad and mom would not approve of an adventure of this kind (due to the Covid pandemic). I was on a panic mode ever since I got my husband’s WhatsApp message that he had booked us tickets for a movie. After long hours of debate with my own self I decided not to update them of our little adventure. I knew the reactions and didn’t want to confront.

We, correction I, stealthily left the house. My husband was highly confident as to him these are things which all grown-ups do. He was a textbook case, growing out of his childhood and teenage at the time intended for any average Homo sapien.  I put my mobile phone in silent mode immediately after we left home. I knew that it would ring anytime from the moment we left the place. I didn’t want to explain. I was sure my mother will call my son to find out my whereabouts and so she won’t worry if I didn’t answer. On our way back I told my husband that mom will be out waiting. He brushed it aside as it would be ridiculous to stay up so late just to show that she knows.

Why did she stay awake? Is it to give the ‘urgent mail’ that had come in the morning? It is not my mother’s behavior that worries me, but the impending fear that I might end up behaving this way in future.

My expert analysis on the event left me with only one scientific explanation, it has to do with transforming ourselves from the role of a parent to being the parent of adult children.

Parenting

Once our little bundles of joys arrive we are busy trying our best to bring them up in the best possible way. We instruct and guide them on every wake of their life. We have their best interest at heart. We toil feeding, doing the laundry, picking up their toys, saving money for their school… we know what is best for them. We are parenting.

Parenting is the process of raising children and providing them with protection and care in order to ensure their healthy development into adulthood. It is caring for, nurturing and training a child to make good choices according to the dictionary.

Being a Parent

The question is when should we stop parenting and most importantly, what should we do once we retire from parenting. It is easier for a westerner as the birds do leave their nests eventually. But we Asians especially Indians are put on lurch. After practicing parenting for so many years we neglect to consider our future as the parents of adult children who themselves are now married with children of their own.

Though every parent struggle once they assume the role, I think the real challenge is when the children grow up and more importantly we have done our job of parenting well.

Dilemma of parents at any age

Let’s explore the common pit holes in to which we might fall.

Unable to hold back we continue to instruct them on how they should conduct the daily mundane things and take care of every need even if they didn’t ask for it. That too even more than we used to back when they were growing up. Honestly, we need not decide on whether our grandkid’s hair be trimmed today or next week.

We compare their lives with our times oblivious of the passage of time. 

'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' - to quote Kahlil Gibran

Thus, we might have sent our kids to Kindergarten at the age of three or four. But now we have play groups and pre-schools  were kids go at an even younger age. In fact, our parents went to 'ashankalari' which belongs to a similar league before they went to formal school.  Things we may not have imagined in the wildest of our dreams could be a child’s play a few decades from now. So let us refrain from criticizing every decision our children make. 

We judge every parenting decision of our children. Sure we were better parents than they are now. But how can we be logically convinced that they don’t know anything that we knew back when we were of their age. 

There was a time when we knew every step our children took. We do want to be in their lives now. But let us not take our curiosity to an extreme that we become too nosey. We can be assured that they will let us in on all the important things. 

We might want to know what is inside our child’s suitcase or an unopened present even when they are well past their middle ages. But let us not overstep boundaries.

True, we have mobile phones these days and our kids can provide us updates on their state of affairs at least on hourly basis. They are reachable all the time. But let us understand that they have a life apart from us and occasionally they might be busy to pick up our call. So let us be patient. We need not redial twelve times continuously or call up on all their friends and acquaintances unless it’s a real emergency.

So let us hold back our natural tendency of trying to fix every problem our children have and allow them to fall and fail. Failure is indeed nature's way of teaching and is hundred times better than any amount of instruction. Hence let's not overdo things or overstep.  After all, being the parent of adult children is about having a relationship with them, adults relating to adults. If we fail to make this transition we might end up hurting our adult child eventually to a point where it gets saturated and there won’t be much of a relationship to have.

Further Reads:

 https://m.economictimes.com/news/how-to/eight-signs-that-youre-an-over-protecting-or-obsessively-focused-parent/articleshow/88727050.cms