Parenting- A Challenge Or An Opportunity?

I am a mother of two children. My daughter is twelve years old and my son is six years old. It is truly said that a child gives birth to a mother. We were overjoyed to welcome our little bundles of joy in our lives to fulfil our desire of making a family complete.

This is truly an amazing journey which no one can prepare you for. Moreover, no one can give you the right answer for every little day to day challenges one faces dealing with our children. Our own parents can guide us to some extent by sharing their experiences but I feel it is an individual journey for each and every parent as most of the answers are unknown and no matter how many children you have, you are still learning. Once you are a parent you will always be on your toes guiding your children and trying not to repeat the same mistakes our parents have done. In this process, we tend to make our own new set of mistakes which we hope our children will not repeat.

There is a sharp contrast to the nature of my two children which makes me walk a tightrope on a daily basis. My daughter is twelve years old and she is quite an introvert. As I have always been very much interested in things like art, drama, dance and academics, I had expected her also to be the same. I tried my level best to try to grow her interest into all these activities by giving her lots of opportunities in performing different types of cultural programs in various places during festive seasons and otherwise. But soon I found out that I was trying to make a replica of myself by pushing her into all those socially acclaimed activities for my satisfaction to show her off as a trophy of my efforts. She was totally not interested in all those and slowly it made me realise to accept her as an individual as she is and not what I want to make out of her. Yes, I have tried my level best and I do not have any regrets of not trying it at all. It was wrong on my part to expect her to be the same as me. I realised that I have to find her interests as well as her potential for the things that she truly likes to do. It became a lot easier to truly focus on her strengths which are reading books all the time, being creative with her art/crafts and also being just happy with herself.

It made me look into myself that I need to inculcate these simple things and be satisfied with the way one is. The more stubborn or difficult the child is the more opportunity we are getting to look deeper into oneself and become wiser to the fact that the children are not here to repeat the same things that we have been doing till now. It is time to learn from them and let them grow in whichever way they want to. Our duty is to protect and nurture them as far as possible and let them learn on their own with their mistakes.

My son is only six years old and he loves to achieve things in contrast to my daughter. He is an extrovert which makes my life easier as I can understand and relate to his problems better. He, being a second child has an advantage of learning things faster. His issues are different mostly on an emotional level which again is a challenge for me. He loves to be busy with lots of activities every day. Being an extrovert myself I know why he gets very upset when something doesn’t work his way when he is interacting with other. Giving him emotional support gives me an opportunity to look into my own insecurities and other shortcomings which I am sure everyone has.

We always try to fulfil our dreams through our children by moulding them the way we want them to. But in this entirely selfish process, we forget that the whole experience of parenting in life is to transform be ourselves and not our children. We have to remember that for every little challenge that we face, it is time to look inward for the solutions and to make it an enjoyable learning process. We should not try to hide our shortcomings and project a know-all attitude towards our children. It is because of them that we are getting an opportunity to look at our own self clearly. Let us all look hope to be the best parent in the world and in the process, work towards our inner self to make this life fulfilling and worthwhile. Being a good parent and all, who knows?

A little about Sujata: She is a 39 years old, full-time mother of two children, aged 6 and 12. She has done her management in IT from Xaviers Ranchi and B. Tech in Electronics from Nagpur.  She loves to travel a lot for the sake of learning the diversity of human lives all over the world. After marriage, she has stayed in London for few years. She is also a Reiki practitioner and loves to cook and experiment for fun. Her is passionate about fine arts particularly dancing, singing and painting.