Is My Child My Life?

When a baby is born, it gives birth to lot of relationships: parents, grandparents, aunt, uncle etc. Everyone is born along with the baby. All relationships are associated with individuals who already have a life, its the baby who has to form its life in this world. The love, care, protection, pleasure, comfort, anger, disappointment, success, failure all of these form the elements of life. As a parent my life is formed by these elements and the experience associated with them. If I say my baby is my life, will my life become my baby’s? No! A new born is the start of a journey towards adulthood and becoming an individual. Acceptance of a new life as an individual and not as a possession enriches the experience of a parent and a child. Just like each person is unique, every life has its purpose from the time it enters the world. Making that life as your life is not parenthood. Living the experiences of both life as two different and yet supporting each other to grow those experiences helps the kid transform into adulthood and face the challenges throughout the life. Life doesn’t start when you become an adult, life starts when you enter the world.

Love can be overwhelming. Especially when it is associated with a life we bring into this world. World and Life treats everyone equally. A child experiences life just like an adult but we adults don’t value a child’s life like we are suppose to do. When I am a baby, I do have emotions which I cannot express or sometimes don’t know that it can be expressed but I am learning to understand which becomes the base of my personality as I grow. As a parent, if I consider my child is my life, I try to take charge of this experience of the kid and expect the kid to feel what I feel as an adult. When playing with mud can give pleasure to a kid and not an adult, how can we expect to understand the pain, anger, disappointment or resentment a kid goes through in a situation and claim to protect them from anything coming their way during their childhood. Each experience is personal and every emotion is lived by the individual the way they perceive be it a child or an adult. As parents we sometimes undermine the feelings and assume protecting our kids from pain is the only way of providing a happy childhood. But have we ever imagined life is not filled with only happiness, if we don’t expose our kids to pain how will they learn to deal with it? As a kid when exposed to pain, parents are around to support them which will help them deal with it but if the same is presented to them as adults it becomes a subject which is out of syllabus and forced to learn after the exam paper is handed over.

As a 1year old, I am excited to walk but as a parent your excitement is to see your kid take its first step. Both excitements are different. Just like how the kid may not understand why you are happy sitting and watching him walk, similarly the parent cannot understand what the kid is experiencing when it is walking. Such experiences are endless in life and the memories, emotions, feelings associated with them are equally different for the child and the parent.

As a 5 year old I am scared to go to school because I don’t like the chair given to me to sit on. But as a parent of that 5year old, I may have a different experience of going to school at that age. When you relive that moment with your kid you should allow the kid to go through his journey of life the way he wants to. Provide an environment to your child to come to you and share the silliest of the feelings. Having an uncomfortable chair is a minor problem for you as an adult but for a kid it is as big as it could imagine because he is with unknown adults and my be some annoying and some overfriendly kids which is all new to him. Help the child to address the issue. Show him the path to resolve the problem. Do not take charge of the problem and say “Ok, I will tell your teacher to change the chair and give you a different one which will be comfortable.”

Problems which we face as adults are no different from what comes in life when we are kids. As an adult my childhood experience makes me an expert to handle those problems my kid is facing and we start to think, “I will not let my kid go through what I faced.” Think again. If you leant how to face life because of your journey from a new born to an adult why do you want your kid to be deprived of an opportunity to build their problem solving skills?

As parents it is easy to say I was your age too, so I know what life is, what you feel at that age etc. But as time changes life changes too. Just like we say school syllabus changed and what we learnt when we were in 8^th grade kids are learning the same in 5^th grade. So how can we know what they are going through at their age when we are much older than them at the present time. Just like how shocking it is for a kid of 21^st century to imagine life without social media, internet and mobile, it is equally difficult for a parent of that kid to understand their challenges. We can support them, try to understand based on their expression but cannot say “my child is my life” because my life is not the same as my child’s life is. As time changes, life changes too. You lead life with your experience and that makes you the person you are. Provide your kid with the opportunity to improve their life by sharing your experience but not taking charge of their life and saying “I know you better than you know yourself.”

My Child is Part of My Life and I am part of My Child’s Life.

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