An undefined relationship...

Every night, before I get transported to my world of dreams, I lie on the bed and ponder over numerous things that happened on that particular day or maybe about something I encountered or read or saw a couple of days earlier. I recently read a book ‘One Summer’ by David Baldacci, which is about a guy who is on his death-bed counting the last days of his time with the family. Things take a drastic turn in his life where his wife, instead, dies in a freak accident and he miraculously survives his terminal illness. Then it goes on to tell how he gets his kids who have gone to stay their grans and struggles to be a good parent. It is a very touching and emotional book and there were few instances where I could not fight back my tears.

For a minute, consider the life’s truly amazing fact where a male and female sexually bond to create a new life on this earth. The child is then nurtured and cared for by the parents till they are strong and confident to venture out on their own into the world (which I now feel is becoming quite a dangerous place to live in). I still cannot figure out the relationship between the parents and a child, mainly because I have gone through different phases in my life involving my parents. Just like most other kids who look up to their parents for protection when they are really young, I did so too. Teenage was of course the most difficult, again just like most other teenagers, where you consider parents to be of a completely different league, an older league! This went on till early twenties, where we had major misunderstanding with almost everything in life. This phase was followed me discovering friends in my parents. I started to have lengthy conversations with my parents about various things in life. I told them my perspective of life and though there were still frowns and grunts from their end, they knew I could handle things on my own.

Recently, my mother made a statement during one of our casual conversations “You were never a difficult child to begin with. You were never like the other babies who cry all the time or were really mischievous, but later on you really went on to test my level my patience.” Now, that I look back, I can see myself as a very rebellious child. And yes, I was a very short-tempered kid back then. People still say I still am! I used to question everything that I had to do and I used to storm around the house if I did not get a satisfactory response. Looking back at how I was, I start to wonder what sort of a parent I would be. I most certainly would not demonstrate the parenting skills my parents had J mainly because I thought they were conservative in several ways. Bringing up a child is such a delicate act which needs to be very meticulous and I want to be a perfect parent, just like every other parent’s wish.

My husband and I, at times, differ in our thoughts about life and how a child should be reared. But I feel, we really complement each other and would go on to create a darling of a child and hopefully, not a hodge-podge monster!!! :-D