Asha Iyer Kumar :
Remember those years when we were desperate to kick our childhood shoes and creep into adolescent keds? The time when we were so miffed at being dumbed down by all things grown and intelligent that the only thing we wanted was to be like our privileged teenage sister or brother?
Curiously, later when the frustrations of the pubescent years began to get to us, we hastened to enter the adult zone imagining that’s where the freedom lay and when we got there, we lost all our bearings and yearned to be back in school again. Yet when we see our kids grappling with the newfangled demands of contemporary childhood, we wonder if that’s where we want to go on a break to escape our drudgery.
The idea of age is very fluid and often we identify ourselves by the roles we play. It is well nigh impossible for us to determine to which phase we belong mentally although we have exact physical perception of it. We wobble between stages of life, finding ourselves here one moment and there the other, wanting to be young and nascent at one time, and grey and settled at the other. Never has this age conundrum been so apparent as in the presence of our parents.
For all practical purposes, we are adults, with a mind of our own, with a clear sense of the good and the bad, with survival tools in our kit and plans in our pockets and the power to steer our lives in the direction we choose. But none of these matter to the two people to who we are still fledglings struggling to tie their shoe laces and tuck their shirts in. To them it is difficult to come to terms with the reality of our having attained maturity and worldly wisdom. No passage of time or turn of events will convince them that we not only can tackle our shoes laces and necktie now, but we can be Presidents of companies and countries too. In their benign estimation, we still need to be counseled, helped with, fussed over and worried about.
Of course, it can be vexing at times just as it was when we were still in our shorts and skirts. But we don’t fret over it now as much as we did then, for we are learning lessons from our lives. Every act of defiance and protestation by our swiftly growing children in response to our overbearing parental gestures will remind us of our own filial obligations and alert us to the fact that no matter how grey we grow, in their eyes, we are ‘children.’
Even now, despite my protests, my father travels a long distance to the airport to receive and see us off every time we visit India. He still walks me up to the rickshaw stand, fixes the fare on my behalf and referring to me with a term of endearment, tells the driver, “Drop her safely at the destination.” It makes me smile and shake my head in fond, fake disapproval. My mother fusses if I go out in the rain or don’t return home in time. She worries about the evil eye and cautions me about it. There is advice and suggestions galore even when we don’t seek them. To them, it is all part of parenting, a task they will not give up till they leave us to our destiny and move on.
As I said, it may grate at times, but it will help their sagging geriatric spirits if we masquerade our seasoned, know-all aspect for a while for their sake and comply. In a typical case of role reversal, we may have taken charge as their guardians in their waning years, but in their hearts, we are their babies – at six, sixteen and sixty.
It is a privilege that will last only till they are around.
(Asha Iyer Kumar is a freelance writer based in Dubai)
