Tiana

"No, you cannot marry that friend of yours when you grow up, Sweetie pie" I told her, "You will marry a handsome, well-educated, rich boy from a decent family when you grow big", casually. My four-year-old daughter wanted to know if she could marry her classmate when she grew up. I would have said, "May be" or would have easily changed the topic. But like every other protective mother, I told her what was best for her, or what I perceived to be the best for her.

My husband, who over-heard us, said that there is no chance that our daughter will find the true meaning of love "ever", if I set standards to love. I smiled to dismiss, but it became a topic of discussion after she slept. He wanted to know why, why exactly did parents, especially mothers, want their kids to have the best. Why couldn’t they say, "Just fall in love. Let your heart decide- I will approve anyone you love and I will be there for you, no matter what". I tried reasoning that it was just a four-year-old kid, not a girl in twenties actively hunting for a life partner. He was adamant. He wanted a general answer. No mine, not my mother’s or his mother’s. Just a mother’s perspective.

I know my mother and my mother-in-law who wanted the best for both for us, and did everything they could do unite us. I have seen a lot of people do the same. They say marriage is all about adjustment. And, to choose the one you want to spend the rest of your life with, you need not adjust. They will search for the "one" you would love to live with, and then wait for both of you to fulfill their every expectation about the relation. It is impossible to predict if you would love the other person instantly to live happily ever after. But with a standard partner proviso they want to ensure that eventually, there is a chance to find love, if not overnight. And then there are instances when they let you choose the "right person" for you. Imagine a girl in Research and Development falling for a janitor in the same building. Imagine a doctor falling for a waitress. Its’ definitely a Cinderella or Cinder-fella story, but how acceptable would the match be to the parents? A few liberals would say, "Yes, we are there for you dear" and give a glimpse of a scary future when everything, according to them, would fail in the relation. Some conservatives oppose the relation and then try to protect you and prevent such happenings. It would be a rarity to get their unconditional, unbiased, wholehearted blessing when you choose an unconventional partner. They fail to understand that nobody can fall in love at the right moment, with the right person under right circumstances. That would be too perfect a situation for anyone human. Life and love aren’t a part of any arithmetic task that you can balance easily. Left hand side doesn’t always balance with the right hand side when you start an equation. You assume it would equate and then balance to prove your point.

A friend of mine once told me a story about a little girl who went to a buy a dress with her mom. The little girl was sitting on a parapet watching the birds and blue sky, enjoying the candy she just bought. Her mom came and dragged her along to a shop and asked her to choose a dress. The girl was given a choice between a pink dress and a yellow dress. The girl chose a yellow dress and came home happily. She wore it immediately and went to show it to her dad. Her dad asked her, "Did you like the dress?" She said, "Yes, I do". He asked her if she saw the same pattern in different colors before choosing this. She said she didn’t. He asked her if she needed a dress, she said she didn’t know. He asked her how much she paid for it. She didn’t know. But she said, mommy wanted her to choose one among the two she selected, and she thought yellow is better than pink. Such is the maternal imposition.

Love is spontaneous. Be it for the person you want to spend you life with or for a skill, an occupation you want to practice all your life. Forcing us to do something just because it is the best will not take us anywhere, and definitely, will not take you with us. We were asked to close our eyes and trust you to take us to a place that you thought was destined for us. The result? We are all zombies in the alien land not knowing what we want, what our heart wants. We have a job that pays six figures, and we hate to do it at least three days a week. When we pay our bills or when we take that car out for a zooming ride, we are thankful our parents forced us to do something that helped us get things we wanted. We have a life-partner that we live with and fail to connect with, most of the times, and at other times think that we would have lead a similar life with anyone. And we love Starbucks because they let us exercise our options; they ask us what we want and how we want it.

Ambition and standards make life interesting. A tinkling anklet on your feet guards your thoughts before you take every step, but a load of metal hanging at your ankle will pull you down from reaching where you want to, when you want to. I hope parents understand the difference between guarding-guiding-leading and dragging kids to an unknown wonderland blindfolded. My little angel was sleeping peacefully, smiling occasionally, perhaps dreaming of the princesses. I kissed her forehead and silently promised her, "You are one of the most beautiful, intelligent creatures on the earth who rule over everything else. You are a part of me, but you are not me. I will let you live life on your terms, on your conditions. I will let you explore who you truly are, and the purpose of your life. I will let you exercise your options. I won’t push you to be something I couldn’t, and to get something I couldn’t. I won’t impose anything on you that would blur your vision of your future. I will let you get calluses by getting beaten for your mistakes and be with you when you learn from them. I will lead you, I will educate you and I will empower you and I will trust you."

(Wrote this four years ago when Mighty Eight was four. We have come a long way since then, but this incident was a turning point of sorts. Good or bad, I have let her decide what she wants ever since. Children should be free to make their own choices. My parents, both of them educators believed in that and let me have my own freedom, but still, when I became a parent, I ended up being a protective gate-keeper mother in the beginning, until my husband kept reminding me to back off)

© Meghana Joshi (Image and article), All rights reserved.