Parenting is hard as well as fun
Can You Buy Me A Burger?
Love lessons that you never expect!
Friends,
Life is spontaneous and beautiful. And kids make your world so much more rich and fun to live in! The perspective and the energy they bring in are amazing. Sure, they can give you a hard day. But they can also make you smile after one. So here’s a cheerful little anecdote that happened with my young teen.
Mumbai’s rainy season:
One day my boy came back home from school. He had had a bath and was having his lunch when he suddenly realized that he lost his umbrella at school.
Mumbai’s monsoon season is phenomenal with torrential downpour being a regular affair. So he knew he had missed something important. That day we instructed him suitably to look for his umbrella the next day not only in his class but also at the school’s lost and found section.
The next day he went to school without an umbrella (Psst…I felt a bit bad because there was his old umbrella lying around. But I was also confident that he would manage things as he has a good number of friends).
That day he came back home sad saying that he couldn’t find the umbrella. He said he had asked his friends, the class teacher, the lost and found section, its floor manager, and many others.
Careless with a reason:
“You see, I was tired that day after doing my NCC drills. That’s why I forgot it!” he reasoned.
I took pity on him at this point.
“At least will you be careful in the future?” I asked him by way of inquiry. And he said “So what if I don’t have an umbrella? My friends do. So I warned them to keep theirs carefully and take it back home!”
“Don’t worry” I said just to reassure him “It’s only your mamma now here. You wait till your dad comes back from his office. He’s going to scold you hard! But as for me, I can forgive, love, and protect you” I said trying to impress him.
I thought I had genuinely won his heart by being generous and kind. But that satisfaction may not have even lasted one minute for me. Because almost immediately he said “Well, in that case…. can you buy me a burger?”…
Key Message: I changed my mind about all that stupid, sentimental, winning-his-heart nonsense. If there was the Great Wall of China nearby I would have gladly gone and banged my head instead!
