Have We Grown With Our Children?

Over the years their dreams and aspirations have changed for their kids. They have not stopped dreaming but they are not chasing any dreams.

When my kids started school, I made this new friend who had the same perturbed look on her face every morning. There was a ritual that all we mothers had …a 10-minute group session after dropping the kids. She would ask everyone the same thing “What have you all put in their tiffin?”

Every day a quick dose of healthy recipes would be exchanged. Well, you know how energetic we all are to pack a tiffin when kids start school. Pity the excitement doesn’t last long. We all eventually ran out of recipes to share but her queries did not stop. So 10 years have passed …the kids are now hormonal teenagers and I happen to bump into this lady again. After the exchange of pleasantries, the conversation drifts to the kids obviously. And there it comes again “ What do they take in their tiffin?”. I am left wide-eyed and speechless as in the age they are in now I am happy that they still take tiffin and happier when they don’t as that gives me an extra half hour to sleep. Why is she still troubled by this I wonder? If she is worried about this then there would be a thousand little things that she is bothered by every day.

The other end of the spectrum is this socialite mom whose life is about parties, dressing up and living the good life as they say. She was never part of these tiffin conversations…in fact once when her cook left she asked everyone how to boil potatoes. She probably thought there is a scientific formula to be applied there. Planning the menu or seeing if kids are eating right was the least of her worries. Well over the years we made it our moral duty to inform her about the goings-on in school …after all, somebody had to do it. Recently when I met her she was all praise for how confident her kids were.

She did mention in a side note that the PTMs can be quite depressing after listening to the endless complaints. There is an art of ignorance which only a few posses and this one was a master at that. Next moment she would convince herself that her kids are fine and the parties would go on.

Now there is this set of friends which I have known for so many years. I have seen them worry about the little things and seen them tackle the bigger things. What is different is that they learnt to trivialise and prioritize. Over the years their dreams and aspirations have changed for their kids. They have not stopped dreaming but they are not chasing any dreams. With each passing year, they have left meaningless issues behind and taken the tougher ones head-on. With each passing year, they have grown with the children. These ones I wish to emulate …they are my heroes.

Image via Pixabay

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