There are some amazing parents in the animal kingdom. Several birds try to deflect the predator’s attention to their young ones by making themselves a possible prey. The Giant octopus who lays the eggs, tends to them without eating and dies off. Orangutans, Polar bears and elephants who invest time and energy running into years to ensure that their offspring stands a good chance. Parenting is a required genetic trait, but there is one animal that outshines all when it comes to worrying and strategising about their progeny’s future – Humans. Depending on who you ask, today’s parents spend several hours every week agonising over what would be the right food, the right school, coaching, doctors, extra curricular activities for their precious pearls.
As a species, we are born dependent and that dependency can last till your teens, twenties or god forbid, throughout your life too, based on how much of ‘parenting’ you get. From one end of the scale of parents who leave their kids in a maze to fend for themselves to the other end who excavate a solid path for their kids to follow and hand hold them the entire journey, we have all flavours. In India, where there is a notion of lesser resources and more people, several parents adopt the ‘Hunger Games’ level of competitiveness to give an edge to their kids, even if it means drowning their principles and venturing into moral gray areas.
Where do we draw the line between motivating our kids to take up something that they might enjoy (or think that they might) to manipulating or coercing them into something that we deem is right for them. Do we know them well enough to make major life decisions for them. This is a tough question and since every parent is an empirical experiment in progress and every child unique, emulating others might not get you the best overall growth for your child or even the one that you had hoped for. To each their own – Happy Parenting!