Yesterday, I turned 36. And, I chose to celebrate my birthday by taking the day off, and spending it with my family. Lunch with my better half, play time with the kids, and finally, dinner with my family and in-laws. In short, one of the nicest birthdays I’ve had in a long time.
I was just thinking about that when I chanced upon another interesting post by my good friend – Neeraj. Now, I’m not a fan of the obscure titles he choses for his blog posts, but he does churn out some thought-provoking stuff. His recent post – Tempus Fugit – is one such example.
Preserving each memory of their children into jpegs and mpegs, struggling to find more storage, more space, more pen drives, more hard drives. Anything that could bring them closer to the myriad ways they knew their kids. I thought growing up sounded pretty hard for a parent. I was wrong. It’s much worse. … Possibly in a bid to rationalize my muddled priorities a couple years ago I asked myself whether it’s easier to connect with your child when he/she’s a little older and able to communicate. Maybe. Then I lapsed back into my blue funk when I realized the difference between “connect” and “bond”. Those videos of me and Tyke when he was a baby or a babbling brook weren’t of vedic instructions repeated flawlessly by an eager ward. They were of delight, joy, warmth, bonding with your child and discovering what it means to be a dad. Unfortunately, there’s only 60 videos worth of me getting there.
Preserving each memory of their children into jpegs and mpegs, struggling to find more storage, more space, more pen drives, more hard drives. Anything that could bring them closer to the myriad ways they knew their kids. I thought growing up sounded pretty hard for a parent.
I was wrong. It’s much worse.
… Possibly in a bid to rationalize my muddled priorities a couple years ago I asked myself whether it’s easier to connect with your child when he/she’s a little older and able to communicate. Maybe. Then I lapsed back into my blue funk when I realized the difference between “connect” and “bond”. Those videos of me and Tyke when he was a baby or a babbling brook weren’t of vedic instructions repeated flawlessly by an eager ward. They were of delight, joy, warmth, bonding with your child and discovering what it means to be a dad. Unfortunately, there’s only 60 videos worth of me getting there.
I remember the time I had traded in my Royal Enfield bullet (350cc classic bike) for a camcorder, when Pumpkin was born. Seven years have passed since that day, and I am left richer with megabytes of memories by way of still photos, videos, mobile pics and blog posts… memories that we as a family will cherish for years to come. And, through this blog, I hope to leave behind a legacy of these moments for my children – a way for them to relive their formative years – something I was not fortunate to have as a child.
Yes, I still long for a ride on a bullet, and turn my head every time I pass one on the streets. But, I have no regrets for the tradeoffs I’ve made in my life, since my children were born. They bring an incredible amount of joy, fascination, amazement and wonder to our lives – just being with those two little people can do all that!
Neeraj sums it up beautifully, when we writes:
Today, I’m heavily invested in things I’m always going to hold on to for the rest of my life; a family, children, work and friends – online and offline. The first two will always deserve more than their fairshare and the other two will always demand more than their fairshare. It’s up to me to balance those inequities before time runs out.
You and me, both, I say.
It was a little over two years ago, when I first spoke to Pumpkin about taking her to a “snow place”. Since that time, on numerous occassions, she used to ask me when we would be making the trip, and I would always reply that we would go soon, and that these things take a lot of planning, and even if we go there would be no guarantee of actually seeing snow.
It had been bugging me for a while now – the fact that it was a promise not yet fulfilled. Something or the other would come up each time we planned an excursion for the family. And, the “snow” vacation just did not happen.
But, I was determined to make it happen before the year ended.
The more I researched the idea, the more I realized that perhaps relying on the good fortune of the weather or enduring the trials and tribulations of what goes by the name of “tourism” in India, may not be the best way to go about it. So, I started the hunt for indoor snow resorts / theme parks and after exploring Dubai and Singapore, finally settled on Bangkok’s Dream World / Snow Town.
Bangkok is a destination that I am very well-acquainted with, and it would be a great way to introduce the kids to the sights and sounds of a foreign culture! We had been talking about taking the children for an international trip, and were waiting for both to be the right age. Tiger had just turned 3, and Pumpkin was 6 and a 1/2. The timing was perfect. As luck would have it, a popular travel site was also running a special promo offer for Bangkok during that period, with a free entry to Dream World!
We took an Air India flight out of Mumbai as the timings were most convenient. (I still can’t see myself taking an international flight that departs in the middle of the day!) The service apartment suite on Sukhumvit Road was cozy and well-managed. Dusit Zoo was delightful. The day spent at Safari World was enchanting in so many ways, the most memorable of which was feeding the giraffes! The afternoon we spent in Rotfai Gardens & Butterfly Park was simply magical. And, Dream World / Snow Town was literally a dream come true – unlimited rides for the kids through the day, and we touched snow.
All the planning and preparation had paid off, and I was able to fulfill a promise to my Pumpkin. Seeing her face the first time she touched snow was a memory I would cherish for a long time. And, Bangkok would never be the same again for me…
Thanks to a re-tweet by a friend, I discovered a really well-written piece by Natasha Badhwar (Indian Express) on what it means for her to grow up with her kids.
The essay is generously laced with humour and insight, and has a lot to offer, not just for those of you who may be trying to understand what parenting involves, but also for young parents like us who can use some welcome tips to help us make the most of our experience! Here are some excerpts…
We are parents of three children, but don’t let the number distract you. The more they are, the better pictures they make. The more they are, the more time off a parent gets. The higher the sense of achievement when one gets anything done at all. Like being on time for the school bus… Like everyone else around me, I embarked on parenthood with my own set of delusions. Eight years into the game, I’ve lost a lot of the wisdom that had seemed a natural gift. I feel lighter. My learning is inconclusive and contradictory and doesn’t work all the time. Quite like the children I learnt them from. After all, it’s still early years. I call it a game, because that inspires us to play. Play demands creativity, one gets better with practice and if one keeps up the spirit, then laughter and fun comes along. Play can get difficult; it requires fitness and training.
We are parents of three children, but don’t let the number distract you. The more they are, the better pictures they make. The more they are, the more time off a parent gets. The higher the sense of achievement when one gets anything done at all. Like being on time for the school bus…
Like everyone else around me, I embarked on parenthood with my own set of delusions. Eight years into the game, I’ve lost a lot of the wisdom that had seemed a natural gift. I feel lighter. My learning is inconclusive and contradictory and doesn’t work all the time. Quite like the children I learnt them from. After all, it’s still early years.
I call it a game, because that inspires us to play. Play demands creativity, one gets better with practice and if one keeps up the spirit, then laughter and fun comes along. Play can get difficult; it requires fitness and training.
I especially love the analogy about parenting as a “game”. Being a father of two kids myself, I know how much work can go into being a good parent. And, at the same time, the act of being a parent can be so incredibly rewarding and filled with joy, that it can get quite impossible to explain to any non-parent, on a logical level, why so many of us opt to have children! That’s why the “game” analogy makes perfect sense.
But, that’s not all you can get from Badhwar’s write-up. Here’s some more…
Parenting demands that we have to be more present, rather than absent. It’s easier to be away at work, far easier to be stuck in traffic every day. Parents love Mondays. If you work at home, you get to send the kids away, if you work outside, you get to send yourself away. Monday is parents’ secret Saturday. But eventually, our children will give each other what they get from us… So I make a game out of this too. We are all crew and cast on a film set. Sometimes I am allowed to raise my voice because I am the Director. I always make up for it with my crew and actors afterwards, because you know, I need them on the sets tomorrow. This film depends on their motivation, I couldn’t pay anyone to act in this one…
Parenting demands that we have to be more present, rather than absent. It’s easier to be away at work, far easier to be stuck in traffic every day. Parents love Mondays. If you work at home, you get to send the kids away, if you work outside, you get to send yourself away. Monday is parents’ secret Saturday. But eventually, our children will give each other what they get from us…
So I make a game out of this too. We are all crew and cast on a film set. Sometimes I am allowed to raise my voice because I am the Director. I always make up for it with my crew and actors afterwards, because you know, I need them on the sets tomorrow. This film depends on their motivation, I couldn’t pay anyone to act in this one…
If you’re still wondering why parents enjoy parenting so much, I’ll offer you some more of Badhwar’s words, in response: “They remind us of what we were like when we started out. What we can be like, what can be reclaimed.”
Simply put, children are reminders of the best that Life can be.
Thanks to a link posted by BossLady, I discovered a brilliant writeup in the Post on people’s inability to comprehend what stay-at-home-moms do all day long !!! Carolyn Hax attempts to answer the question: “Why don’t moms have time for a call or e-mail?”, and succeeds admirably, I might add…
When you have young kids, your typical day is: constant attention, from getting them out of bed, fed, clean, dressed; to keeping them out of harm’s way; to answering their coos, cries, questions; to having two arms and carrying one kid, one set of car keys, and supplies for even the quickest trips, including the latest-to-be-declared-essential piece of molded plastic gear; to keeping them from unshelving books at the library; to enforcing rest times; to staying one step ahead of them lest they get too hungry, tired or bored, any one of which produces the kind of checkout-line screaming that gets the checkout line shaking its head. It’s needing 45 minutes to do what takes others 15. It’s constant vigilance, constant touch, constant use of your voice, constant relegation of your needs to the second tier. It’s constant scrutiny and second-guessing from family and friends, well-meaning and otherwise. It’s resisting constant temptation to seek short-term relief at everyone’s long-term expense. It’s doing all this while concurrently teaching virtually everything – language, manners, safety, resourcefulness, discipline, curiosity, creativity. Empathy. Everything.
When you have young kids, your typical day is: constant attention, from getting them out of bed, fed, clean, dressed; to keeping them out of harm’s way; to answering their coos, cries, questions; to having two arms and carrying one kid, one set of car keys, and supplies for even the quickest trips, including the latest-to-be-declared-essential piece of molded plastic gear; to keeping them from unshelving books at the library; to enforcing rest times; to staying one step ahead of them lest they get too hungry, tired or bored, any one of which produces the kind of checkout-line screaming that gets the checkout line shaking its head.
It’s needing 45 minutes to do what takes others 15.
It’s constant vigilance, constant touch, constant use of your voice, constant relegation of your needs to the second tier.
It’s constant scrutiny and second-guessing from family and friends, well-meaning and otherwise. It’s resisting constant temptation to seek short-term relief at everyone’s long-term expense.
It’s doing all this while concurrently teaching virtually everything – language, manners, safety, resourcefulness, discipline, curiosity, creativity. Empathy. Everything.
Read the entire post. It hits the nail on the head!
A good friend posted yet another writeup on the “childfree argument” and the trials and tribulations of Parenthood:
An extremely well-written overview of recent studies showing how and why the fun has gone out of parenthood: All Joy and No Fun Why is this important to the childfree by choice? Well, the next time someone says, “You’ll regret not having kid.” or, “Parenthood is such a joy, you’re missing out” you can send them a link to this article.
An extremely well-written overview of recent studies showing how and why the fun has gone out of parenthood:
All Joy and No Fun
Why is this important to the childfree by choice? Well, the next time someone says, “You’ll regret not having kid.” or, “Parenthood is such a joy, you’re missing out” you can send them a link to this article.
And, I was compelled to respond…
That’s a detailed writeup with lots of references to well-founded studies, no doubt. But, I do not think it is putting forth an argument that has no “other” side.
I quote from the writeup… “A few generations ago, people weren’t stopping to contemplate whether having a child would make them happy. Having children was simply what you did. And we are lucky, today, to have choices about these matters.“
The question is, why are we beginning to examine this new “choice”. Is it really because it’s better for the planet to have less resource-depleting human beings on it? Or could it be self-centeredness on our part? Or hubris? Just the pursuit of our own happiness/comfort/convenience, above all else?
Once again, I quote from the writeup… “Children may provide unrivaled moments of joy. But they also provide unrivaled moments of frustration, tedium, anxiety, heartbreak. This scene, which isn’t even all that awful or uncommon, makes it perfectly clear why parenting may be regarded as less fun than having dinner with friends or baking a cake. Loving one’s children and loving the act of parenting are not the same thing.”
Re-read this para in light of the questions I asked earlier. Yes, travelling across the world or catching a movie with friends can be infinitely more satisfying to us as individuals, than the trials and tribulations of “parenting”, in spite of the limitless love we may have for our children. So why do some of us do it?!
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – Parenting is not for everyone. And, I don’t mean to imply that being childfree is not an option. But, there’s gotta be more to the reason than individual comfort and convenience, don’t you think?!
Every Life has a purpose, even though, at times, it may not be quite apparent to us. And, being a part of nature’s creation process may be the one thing that brings us all closer to Nature herself, and by extension, to God (or whatever life-force we believe in!)
We may each have our reasons for doing what we choose to do (and not doing so, too)! The next kid that walks this Earth may not invent cold fusion, but that doesn’t mean that his/her time on this planet was purposeless…
