Exploring Parenting

When Rekha asked Siddharth once ,”Do you feel you should go to school?”, he said, “No Ma. School is too much pressure. Little pressure is required, but not too much”. I’d asked another kid once, a little older, who’d been to a school, “Why do you think one should go to school?” and she’d replied, “Because you have friends”, and then added with some thought and emphasis, “and enemies. Enemies are also very important.”

Life is quite difficult for children with parents like ours. I can talk about my children. I’m not sure I’d have liked to be in their position. Siddharth is almost 8 and because he’s a ‘thinking’ boy, in many ways, he’s grown beyond his age. In many ways, he is the little boy. Though we’ve never compared him with his cousins and other children going to regular schools in cities, may be he does, quite sub-consciously. Some others do judge and compare, when he stays with or interacts with people in cities. A few of these interactions have been quite nasty. For this one reason, both of us (Rekha and I) hesitate him staying in a city for even a few days.

There is a yardstick he measures himself against and surely there are times he’s not happy with the result. We too, at times, display our discontent over his tendencies, behavior. At times, he is visibly under some stress for unknown reasons. We reassure him, get him out and he does get back. But traces of the tension remain and when layers of this tension get added with time, I don’t think it’ll to much good to his confidence.

Why I say it is difficult for children with parents like ours is that we haven’t started this journey on a clean slate. There’s the backdrop of having broken off the mainstream. So, there’s always a pressure to fare better than the mainstream – and on their yardsticks. For years, our children are witness to these talks & discussions about our breaking off, reasons, often, moral high-ground and to add to it, our stance not to get pressurized.

On one hand there is this stress, but it is not even acknowledged, leave alone dealt with. On the other hand, there is no explicit yardstick, against which they can measure themselves and either feel good about themselves or try to do better.

Our unsettled lifestyle since we moved out of Barkheda is not helping the cause at all. As time passes, we’re realizing that the answer to the question of a permanent place to stay is becoming more elusive.

I can see an answer, but it will require quite some hard work, discipline and perseverance for us, parents. We better do it. There is no option.