Why raising children is like planting a date tree
I am spending time with my children this week by spending time away from them. My husband and I have travelled to a guest house in a forested area with the intention of spending some quiet time together as we both find ourselves between hectic work projects. Our three teenagers are at home with our two dogs and the many cats who live in and outside our home.
We live hyper-busy lives in the city, yet we remain slow-life enthusiasts. We are forever planning to slow down, even as our work, responsibilities, social life and other interests seem to keep us on the go at all times. We make both kinds of resolutions simultaneously — to do what we love, and to try to live uncluttered lives. “We will not travel anywhere for a while,” I often resolve after an exhausting trip full of adventures. Before I know it, we find ourselves making exciting plans all over again.
Families know from experience that being in the same space doesn’t always mean that we are together. Intimacy needs quietness. To be able to bond emotionally, we need a break from distractions that exhaust us. Distance and solitude are an essential requisite for being able to connect with those who matter to us.
At home in the city, my mother is visiting to be the supervising adult among the young people. Kanta, who works in our home and cooks for us, is the constant in their lives — her presence offers a familiar stability.
“Mamma, Kanta Mausi says we have run out of rice,” my daughter texts. I reply with information of where the new sack of rice is stored.
“Did you know that these people were planning to visit us,” she texts on another day, in which she names some of our relatives. I am in a place where my phone doesn’t always pick up the signal, so I see this text a few hours late. By that time, she has sent another message informing me that the guests have left.
We get on a call later at night for a debrief of their day. It had rained all day, there were unexpected guests as well as an electricity breakdown, one of them was sick and needed extra care, the milk got spoiled, so tea could not be made and two of the teenagers had online classes scheduled exactly when things seemed to be most chaotic at home. “Mamma, I went to my room and cried a little bit,” one child informs us.
In an adult’s life, this would count as a regular day, even one full of privilege. For the teenagers, it had been both stressful as well as a thrilling experience — a bit like a hurdle race.
“Mamma, I did everything that needed to be done, but I felt really anxious about all the responsibility,” our daughter shared. “I felt like someone is watching and judging me as I bumble along. I worry that the animals will complain to you that we did not feed them properly.”
In a sense, the teenagers have taken over the invisible, mundane work of running a home. When there is a power cut and the inverter trips after a few hours, they need to troubleshoot on their own. When the dogs return from gambolling in wet mud after a day of rain, the children must shampoo and dry them before they can enter the home. The kids still need to appear in time for their online classes and submit assignments according to deadlines.
From a distance, I feel satisfied with how they are coping. I don’t want to either protect them from challenges or praise them too much for the effort they are making. This is also a critical part of parenting — when one chooses to be hands-off. Sometimes, it is important to get out of the way of our children — both for our own mental and physical well-being as well as theirs.
We live in such an adult-centric world that every now and then, many of us have to pause and re-convince ourselves that working with children, raising them well, enabling them to actualise their full potential is very important work. It isn’t something that gets done on its own.
On the family WhatsApp group, I send the children a photo of their father lying comfortably in bed and reading a book. He is engrossed in Deepti Naval’s memoir, A Country Called Childhood — a book where she talks about her eventful growing-up years in Amritsar. My daughter sends me a photo of my mother lying down in our home, reading a copy of my book, Immortal For A Moment.
I cannot imagine a more life-comes-full-circle moment. My mother relaxing in my home, her grand-daughter photographing her. A book of essays inspired by our life. We are all connected.
“Raising children is like planting a date tree,” someone wise had said to me when my children were very young. “You plant a seed and nurture the soil for years, before the tree matures and begins to bear fruit. It can seem like a long break, but those fruits will eventually nourish you back.”
— The writer is a filmmaker & author natasha.badhwar@gmail.com
