Parental Blues

No parent can constrict or even restrict the parental instinct to offer advice and guidance even on trivial matters to the children long aft...

No parent can constrict or even restrict the parental instinct to offer advice and guidance even on trivial matters to the children long after they have outgrown the stage! Isn8217;t that because our offspring remain our children, no matter how grown-up they be?

I hear my mother-in-law advising her son to put on his sweater some winter mornings. He mumbles something inaudibly and for sure goes to office in his shirt. This leaves the old lady grumbling and groaning about his 8220;childishness and senselessness8221;. Mind you this about a man who8217;s the father of twenty-year olds! Had he been twenty-five years younger, she would have got him to dance to her tune! Or perhaps not, on second thoughts, going by experience. You see, every time my sons leave for hostel after vacation, I8217;d be vociferous in reeling out the oft-repeated Do8217;s and Don8217;ts. 8220;Don8217;t burn the midnight oil at the eleventh hour,8221; 8220;Bathe in hot water8221; 8220;blah, blah8230;8230;8221; My elder son would diplomatically nod to everything; the younger would chant 8220;shant8221;, 8220;shant8221; just to irritate me. Now, with big brother on the other side of the Atlantic, the latter seems to have sobered down. He replies cutely, 8220;Okay mummy,8221; and I choose not to see beyond those words and take them at face value.

Nevertheless, now each of them is undisputedly the architect of his own designs. One sends hair-raising accounts of his experiences, skiing near lake Tahoe or trekking in the Grand Canyon, nearly breaking his bones. ending with the comforting line, 8220;Thankfully I8217;m back 8211; all in one piece.8221;

The other comes cycling from Mumbai to Pune in fourteen hours sending shivers in me at the imagination of the worst possibilities!So I8217;ve realised it8217;s goodbye to those days when I held their reins. I had imposed some unwritten daily rules when they were kids 8211; 8220;No water after oily stuff,8221; 8220;no cold water, oranges and ice creams at night8221;. When my younger son joined the hostel, it seems he refused an orange at night and sure enough became the butt of ridicule. He8217;s not forgiven me for the ragging he faced at being a delicate darling. With a vengeance he started having milk-shakes and ice creams at midnight to prove me wrong. And when he does catch a cold, he turns the tables on me accusing me for his poor resistance.

Once my junior was punished in school for not applying oil on his hair and in all innocence blurted out, 8220;Mummy says, I get a headache if I apply oil8230;.8221; The habit stuck on and now he blames me for 8211; you know what? 8220;No thanks to you for being teased coir-hair8217;,,

Sure enough my sons8217; rough and tough ways are now rubbing on to me and I can claim to be a tough-cookie-in-the-making. But still they feel I have major worry over minor issues! But what they fail to realise is that their minor8217; is our major8217; and vice versa. Generation gap you see!