Let kids live their lives – Happy Mother’s day!

This is the board exam results month. In India the entire family gets involved in a child’s exam preparation and the results. Sometimes it is anxiety while more often than not it is encouragement….moral support and the assurance that ‘we are there’. I don’t know if this is right or wrong but if a family has a child in X standard or XII, for the entire year, there is this air of anxiety, expectancy, solemnness, responsibility and restraint as if a strict penance is underway. It is broken with a sense of déjà vu on the D day when the results are out. Crucial decision making junctions in one’s life about which line of study to pursue.

At times I feel parents take it a bit too far making decisions on behalf of the child, forcing it to take up a combination that they desired to study but couldn’t. Isn’t it time we parents allowed them to take their decisions and be accountable for ? Let us just guide them and allow them to choose and live their dreams. If not they will live our lives and never be happy. Just look at the animals and birds…….they nurture in the initial days only until the little ones are ready to take on the world. They learn to take on the world only by falling, breaking, being attacked, bruised and bitten – never by being fondled, pampered, protected and fed beyond the nurturing years. If they can, why can’t we ? Let us stop mothering our children lifelong. Let them get tough and experience the world around. Believe me, they will learn to stand tall and make us feel proud !

Perhaps the ‘Mother’s Day’ sentiments and the recent exam results motivated me to reflect and share my thoughts even as my team chose the cute birdie banner for this 128th issue of Lexspeak.