Being a parent is an extremely humongous responsibility. As much as it seems challenging, it is equally rewarding. It is a wonderful experience to become a parent and to get the opportunity to raise a tiny person on your own. As a parent, you have the responsibility of raising your child, nurturing him/ her, guiding him, choosing things for him/ her, making certain decisions for his/ her well-being and making sure that your child grows in a comfortable, pleasant environment that helps him/ her grow into a confident, aware and good adult who can build a good life.
This is what I believe the role of a parent is and I think many of you will agree with me, and will have many wonderful opinions of your own which I'd love to read. While the main job of a parent is to raise, nurture and guide a child, I see many parents, in Pakistan especially taking up the role of a dictator in the life of their children which I think is definitely not healthy for kids.
As a parent, you have to make many decision for your kid especially when he/ she is little. You decide how to feed him/ her, what to feed him/ her, how to raise him/ her and many other things like that. However, when your baby grows into an adult, it is your job to let him/ her mature and become an accountable, confident individual who knows what he/ she wants and strives to pursue it. This is often not the scenario here. I see parents deciding everything for their kids from what to do professionally to which activities to pursue to which girl/ boy to marry to how to then raise their own kids. Honestly, I find this extremely impractical and irrational. How can you take away the right of living on your own and making your own decisions from your kids? Honestly, this is something I fail to understand.
A relative of mine was forced to take religious education and study in a madrassa (religious school) when he was younger. The religious scholar who used to teach him often beat him harshly which made my cousin lose interest in getting religious education and run away from the madrassa, and even his house a few times. He tried explaining his desire to study in a school to his father, but unfortunately he did not get it and kept sending him to the madrassa each time that relative ran away.
This is not just the story of that one household. It can be seen almost everywhere here. A friend I made when I was in college went through a similar issue with her parents. She wanted to pursue arts professionally, but her parents had already decided that she'd be a doctor so she was pushed into the medical field even though she had no interest in being a doctor. She did well in her examinations, but did not pass the exam that helps you get admission in the state run medical colleges here. Her parents could afford the tuition fee of private medical colleges so asked her to apply to study in one of them, but she did not pass the admission exam either.
Finally, she decided to do BBA Hons. and her parents did agree to her doing that, but still kept making decisions for her. They got her married right after her graduation and luckily, their decision regarding her husband was a good one. She started living a happy life with her husband, but even then her parents did not stop taking decisions for her. They had decided the couple should settle in a developed country preferably Australia. She had applied to a college there before her wedding and after she got married, her application got approved. She wasn't interested in studying anymore especially in a foreign land and felt quite happy with her life after a long time. However, her parents had made their mind to send her there and kept pushing her to accept that offer. That caused some problems in her marital life, but her parents didn't care much about that.
Episodes like these really make me cringe. Once you are an adult and are capable of thinking for yourself, I don't think anybody has the right to decide things for you. Of course, since parents have presumably more experience of living in this world, they should offer you suggestions and should be a guiding light in your life, but deciding things for you is clearly not what they need to do.
Luckily, I was born to parents who never imposed their wishes on me or my siblings. They did express them and showed eagerness if any of us leaned towards an area they liked, but they never forced us to adopt certain professions or live a certain way. I wish more parents understand that and stop acting as dictators in the lives of their kids. While I am on this topic, I'd like to discuss another issue closely related to it.
Often when parents want their kids to behave a certain way, but see their kid isn't surrendering to their demand, they bring up all the instances wherein the parent did something wonderful for the kid and sacrificed his/ her happiness or pleasures for their child's betterment. Emotional blackmailing as it is commonly known is one of the major tools used by many parents to guilt trap their kids and make them agree to what they want. One of my friend's parents did that when they didn't want her to marry the guy she loved but the one they wanted. They kept telling her how she never gave them anything or reason to be proud of and if she did agree to give them this 'one happiness' as they called it, they'd be forever indebted to her. Finally after days of emotional blackmailing, they succeeded.
I am a parent myself and yes, every day I do lots of things for my son wherein it seems like I am sacrificing my pleasure for his, but hey, did someone force me to become a parent? Hell, no! When I conceived my baby, I wasn't ready to become a mother and had the option of aborting my baby, but the moment I thought of it, I honestly felt someone had stabbed me so I didn't take that road and chose to embrace motherhood happily and willingly. So it was a choice I made and with that choice came a lot of responsibilities so when I made that choice and decision, I chose all those responsibilities too. If I spent nursing my child and hurt my back terribly in that process, it wasn't a sacrifice I made for him. It was something I had to do for my kid. It was my responsibility. There was a time when he wouldn't nurse on me anymore even though I tried so instead of pushing that, I just bottle fed him. I knew I couldn't carry on with something forcefully so I didn't do it.
Being a mother for me meant I played and spent time with my son. It is not a sacrifice of my time. I always had the option of not playing with him, but I chose not to do that. So if decide to do something for him, I made the decision on my own and not a sacrifice. I feel, if something that you do for your kid feels like an act of sacrifice to you, you should not do it at all because if something seems like a compromise, you may not feel truly happy about it and then may use it to guilt trap the other person later on. I am so blessed to have a mother who honestly did a lotttt for us, but never once did she say 'Babies, i sacrificed this for you or that.' She took full accountability of all her actions and decisions and that's what makes me and my siblings love her like crazy.
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I am really sorry if this post feels offensive to anyone. Honestly, that wasn't my aim at all. The only aim of this post is to vent out my feelings on the topic and to try to help people understand that being a parent does not give you a right to own your kids. I don't remember the exact verse and translation but a verse in the Quran-e-Paak (holy book of Muslims) states that all of us have to go in their own grave so parents do not own their kids. I just love this and refer to this especially in gatherings of parents who think their religion has given them the right to own their kids. Honestly, I can go on and on about this issue, but I feel a little exhausted now. Yeah, writing too much tires me at times :P
Do share your views on the topic please. It is a ball for me when I see amazing, meaningful comments on my posts and get the chance to engage in great conversations. You guys are awesome!!!
Love and light,
Sharoon.
If you liked this, the following of my posts may interest you too:
Something to Think About- Issue #1: A Selection of Amazing and Enjoyable Curated Posts
One Smile and a Deep Breath to Quickly Fight Stress
Why Do We Attach Unnecessary Meaning to Everything??
If you like interesting stuff, hop on over to the @ecotrain
