Alright, to really appreciate this piece
you will HAVE TO first read my previous blog on parenting which I wrote almost
six years ago. See here http://gurusanjay.blogspot.com/2007/04/parenting-keeping-your-kite-flying-high.html
That was when my daughter just turned a teenager. What prompted me to write now
are a little retrospection and a lot of introspection when I deal with her as a college
going young adult.
I know, I know that sequels are BIG whether
it is Hollywood (Spiderman, et-al) or Bollywood (Dabangg, et-al)!!! However, mine
is not a sequel but a continuum and a growth of my parenting philosophy with
the passage of time.
I think that my daughter has emerged from
the most tender, tumultuous, and confused teen years as an intelligent, outgoing,
and adventurous young adult. She worked really hard and very smart to earn a
full scholarship for her four years of college education. So, in my kite flying
terms, my kite is flying reasonably high in the sky. However, this has not come
to fruition without its share of challenges – past, present and continuous!!!
Back to my analogy of flying kites, if
you have ever flown a kite you would know that how difficult and risky it is to
control it when it is flying way up in the sky. The string which connects you to
the kite can be snapped by you pulling it (kheench) rashly, broken by strong winds, or can be cut by another rival kite in
the sky. This becomes all the more difficult when you are in an unfamiliar
terrain and when the wind is changing direction all the time. Same has been the
case about parenting for me in a country, different than the one where I spent most
of my life. It is a different time, a different generation, and a different
culture. No matter how much I try to acclimatize myself to all this (sharing
the experience of getting the first tattoo with my daughter!), there are times
when my ideas conflict with that of hers. Trust me, it is not easy when confronted
with arguments which defy traditions, but are logical and rational. Try telling
a person of a much older generation about equal rights for women and appreciating
diversity – in sexual preferences, religion, ethnicity et-al.
What I have a learned and keep on
learning every day is that flexibility with strength is the key to success in parenting.
So, many times I give-in to my daughter’s logic and many times I stand firm and
draw the boundaries which need to be respected. I know, it is a delicate dance
and will vary from parent to parent; child to child; place to place; and time
to time. Come on, me and my wife of more than 20 years’ does not agree on most
of things when it comes to parenting. It is the same with flying kite as it
varies for the type of kite, the skies where it is flown, and most importantly
the person who is flying it. However, one thing is for sure that rigidity and
lack of flexibility WILL only break
– whether it is a relationship or the string that attaches you to your kite
flying high in the sky.
