“Here’s my latest Business Card”, she proffered. I was
surprised. Having taught for 30 odd years, she was now a `retired school
teacher’. Veli, like the rest of us. Or so I thought.
The Card read `Ms So-and so, Parenting Expert’. Hain??
When had that transformation
taken place??
You teach in a school for most of your adult life, you
raise a couple of `normal’ kids,
normal meaning neither Einsteins nor Al Capones, and overnight become an expert at parenting? What skills do you acquire? More
important, are there any skill sets
that you can acquire or even teach to people?
I asked her as much. “I’m now a global ambassador for
Parenting 2.0!” she announced with the delicate flourish of an ostrich laying
an egg.
“O ki hunda ae?” I asked.
She gave me the typical `school teacher’ look, the one
they reserve for the more severely challenged of their students.
“Google it!” was the cryptic response.
I did. Apparently it
is a collection of retired school marms, spread across the world (hence the `global’ ambassador bit), and even has
its own website.
But I was intrigued. Having been brought up by parents whose
parenting skills were questionable at best, and having barely raised the bar a
notch or two myself, I was definitely
intrigued.
All the `skills’, she told me, can be summarized and bullet
pointed into one Power Point slide, as under:-
- · Nurture self belief and confidence in the child
- · Offer unconditional and fair love
- · Be consistent
- · Set goals
- · Listen to your child
- · Life and Social Skills
Simple, hain ji? Not quite!
Let’s do a small exercise.
Take an A4 size sheet of paper and pen. Draw up a list of your
siblings and/or close friends, and sort the list as per the above qualities,
the best at the top and so on. Call that Column A.
Now draw up a list of their children at Column B and sort that
column according to how well the kids have turned out.
You could also draw up a third Column C of their kids, and sort it in the same manner.
You’d think the best parents would have the most well rounded
kids. You’d imagine that the lines connecting parents to kids and further to grandkids
would, by and large, be straight horizontal lines, wouldn’t you? Well, you’ll
be in for a rude shock!
In my case, the lines were completely zigzag. How could `below
average’ parents produce such terrific, well rounded kids, and how could those
terrific kids then go on to produce their own kids who were the very antithesis
of `achchey bachchey’?
So is all this `Parenting 2.0’ or parenting skills coaching just
a lot of hogwash? Is it just a case of playing blind, a lottery over which one
has little or no control?
One would be tempted to think so. But let’s not trash their
efforts out of hand. We can only make efforts at being better parents, and hope
like hell that those efforts pay off.
I know of a mother who strove to raise her kids as a single
parent, slogging to be both mom n dad, slogging to impart her own values to her
children. She was a sublime parent by any standards. But her kids won’t even
talk to her today, even though she’s well into her 80’s! And they’re good kids
otherwise, mind you.
So yes, do your bit. And hope for the best. Pray, if you happen
to be spiritually inclined.
But please don’t hand me a Business Card that qualifies you as a
`Parenting Expert’. There’s no such thing, believe me.
As I never tire of saying, the only thing I know about parenting
is that by the time you get the hang of it, you’re simply and unceremoniously
fired from the job!
