On parenting and closeness

Love is the most difficult form of human emotions. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the bringing up of children.

I have a daughter aged three and a half years. And I hardly get to see her. Because I have been living in a  different city for two years due to my job, somehow hoping that things will change, and trying to bring about that change. Meanwhile, I keep travelling to my hometown every three months to see my wife, kid and parents.

But these two years, while being qualitatively difficult for me, have also taught me a lot about life, that love need not be a type of dependency. While taking care of Aarshi two years back, a fierce type of dependency had developed, wherein it was extremely difficult for me to stay away initially. I remember how I would break into tears when she would not talk on the phone. But today, I have realized that we should not burden our kids with our own emotions and expectations. If she is happy in a particular way, let her be.

Much like the butterfly who flies away from you and then again comes back to land on your shoulder. Children are much like butterflies- both like to flutter in the wind, both are beautiful, and both need to be handled with care, because they are brittle and sensitive.

Only last evening, she called me and said” Papa.” That is still the sweetest sound for me. Or its various forms- “Papai”, “Papalu” etc (all innovations from her creative brain). But there are indeed days when she does not want to communicate. And I do not force her, knowing that love cannot be forced, it comes naturally. Probably that is a lesson that will stay with me even when I am staying with her again.

There was a time when not to see her for even a few days would hurt. But now I don’t see her for months on end, except on Facebook. That doesn’t break me, because I know that a bond has been established, which will continue.

Indeed, I have been as much a part of her life as is possible from a distance, through two birthdays, taking her to school when I am there, taking her to the waterpark, playing with her, taking her to her favourite games (we have now mastered the art of getting chocolates from the jukebox, much to her delight and Doel’s surprise), drawing with her, or simply letting her be, and observing her, listening to her. The last bit is important, because I do not intend to saturate her with my love, or impose my preoccupations and prejudices upon her.

For, as Kahlil Gibran wrote on the bringing up of children,

“Your children are not your children.
They are sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. 
They come through you but not from you.
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the make upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness.
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He also loves the bow that is stable.”

It is ultimately quality and not quantity that should determine the role of love in our life.

As I said, it wasn’t always like this. There was a time when my expectation was too high, that she would love me equally in return for my love. Which is probably unreasonable towards a two-year old kid, I realize in hindsight. There was also this fierce protectiveness. That protectiveness will be there, and I will always gladly shield my child from all harm, but the thought that harm exists, especially in an increasingly  disintegrative and violent society like ours,  will not make me insecure. Life is tough; she will learn in her own way- I can probably make things better by letting her stumble along the pits and crests of life, holding her hand when she falls, but never so tightly as to stifle her.

At her school admission interview last year, the teacher asked us how we would like to bring up our child. Without batting an eyelid, I answered that I would like to see her grow up in her own way, of course with guidance from us, but still independent enough. She can be a ballerina or an engineer, or even a painter- whatever she wants, but she has to want to be so, and choose her own way of doing it.  She loves dancing, so who knows, a ballerina might be a natural choice?

I don’t insist on clicking pictures with her and storing them anymore. Love, in any form, cannot be clicked and stored- it has to be felt and stored securely in your heart and brain. And I am confident, from our mutual closeness whenever I am home, that the love is very much there, and will continue, long after she has seen her old man walk her down the aisle and give her off to some deserving person. It shows in the way she misses me at times when we say goodbye ,and probably expects that I stay on, but I would rather that she learn at an early age that life is about happiness and pain- and the two cannot often be separated. We have to enjoy the happiness and endure the pain. I do enjoy the fact that she is excited whenever she hears that I am coming home. My daughter is a far more matured person than I had thought her to be- she knows that distances do not necessarily create limitations.

Which again does not mean that we do not have our happy Kodak moments together. There are many such moments which we relish in, like the time we went to the Water Park in Kolkata and I was happy to see her excited. It was an uniquely father- daughter experience to wade into the pool with her, hold her securely, and just enjoy the moment with her. I promised myself to do this more often.

Only the other day, I was repeating the elephant stories I used to tell her, in Pune, two years back. And she was recounting the Pune days. She remembers!

We have now taken a conscious decision not to pamper her by catering to all her whims and fancies. Doel and I are completely in sync on this point. We can definitely afford to buy her expensive gifts, but delayed gratification   will be beneficial for her own psychological growth in the long run.

Our human insecurities make us dependent upon others, and when we love someone, this dependence creates a limitation. But the most potent and enabling form of love is the one that sets us free, to define our own boundaries, our own way of thinking, and makes us happy by doing this. The only purpose of love should be to aid the mental and spiritual growth of the other person. Anything else is selfish self-seeking behavior.

No one said that long-distance parenting would be easy. I know I will be back home someday (hopefully soon) , staying with my family and taking care of my daughter once again.  But even then, this forced isolation has taught me more about loving my daughter than I would have had otherwise understood.