Being parents is not only about procreating. It involves a lot of other things. A parent is a mother, father, teacher, friend, nanny, nurse, judge, referee, mentor, critic and a host of other things. All in one, not necessarily in that chronological order though. A good half of our lives are spent on parenting our own children and the other half parenting their children. When you think that you are through it you have reached your golden years and you need parenting yourselves. If you are lucky enough, you land up being parented well and if you are not so, God save them. Or better still, God take them faster!
The life of woes of a parent starts the moment your first bundle of joy (read “bundles” for those very fertile ones) arrives the mortal world – naked, fragile, vulnerable and howling for attention. But you do not realise it then. Wait, let nature show you its ways. Your multi-role starts right from here.
Nursing and feeding takes away most of your waking, and even sleeping, hours. Welcome to the world of parenting. The sleepless nights that you spend by its side, when it develops a slight fever, thinking and imagining the worst of the worst. When the fever is gone you are relieved and want to take a break but your ‘bundle of joy’ never seems to tire. What never ending reserves of energy! It intrigues you to no end. You play and run around with it till you think you will drop dead, only to find that it has found another way of playing with the same toy and you are back to square one. What ingenuity! The little genius!
Then your little genius graduates to being the “little devil”. He will want to test and taste everything (and sometimes everyone) around. He will try to do the unthinkable and the unimaginable. Instead of the little devil, it’s you, who will require all the vitamins and calories to keep pace with him. Where does this little devil get such reserves of energy? Is it humanly possible, you wonder? Its babbling...