Another Bright Beginning

Every previous year in parenthood seems easier to look back at.  With motherload, most of us women realize that we are capable of taking care of a sea of accountabilities that come free with lifeload.

Agreed, in the earlier generation things were a lot easier.  But were they better? Did they have as many opportunities as we do? I guess most independent working mothers would firmly disagree. In today’s age where as women, we want it all, while the girls in us just want to have some fun, we prefer choosing the roses that come with the thorns. It is only then that we can completely enjoy our freedom and peace whenever we get it by serendipity. To overcome the plateau of averageness, we need to raise the bar for ourselves higher than how it was for our mothers and grandmothers.  Because without this mountain of responsibilities in our routine, life seems empty, boring and far too easy!

This year my son started with his kindergarten. Now good schools don’t come cheap and near. So parents just have to deal with the entire extravaganza that comes with tried and tested schooling methods. Frankly, I have been attracted to a lot of radical philosophies of ‘learning without walls’. But I am a bit apprehensive to try unschooling on my son. I do not want to force my experimental side on him.  We celebrate many choices these days. But still, I maintain, age old schooling methods are at least required for social interactions that teach about empathy, sharing and growing up together with children that hail from different backgrounds. It gives one a chance to develop a broader outlook towards living without getting caught up in cultural strings.

When my son grows up to an understandable age, he can choose himself if he wants to continue his formal education or take the ‘road less travelled’ to learn from the school of life!

So now I find myself caught up in this project called schooling with all the excess baggage that comes along. I took some time off work to be mentally equipped for this challenge and made myself fully available to my boy(s) for another new beginning. I feel satisfied to have taken that step.

On the first day of school, my son’s grip on my hand started becoming tighter and tighter and his pout more and more defined with every step. Exactly the way I held my mum’s hand so very tight on the steps to my kindergarten class. I had asked her very naively, “What if you forget to pick me up?” It had been a very important question for me that time.  My mum’s logical answers then had never satisfied or pacified me.  So this time when my son asked me “What if someone else takes my bag when it is hanging outside? What will I eat then?”  I recalled the incident and instead of giving a no-nonsense answer, I made up a fun one.

I said, “Your school bag will start calling your name if someone else picks her up!” He totally believed me and went inside the class with one problem for the day solved in his head. This was a bright beginning indeed.

From then on, I continued with amusing answers to his many cutely curious questions. He does not even remember his ‘bag worry’ these days and our mornings have brightened up all the more. Of course that’s because of the VERY EARLY morning sunshine ;)