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The universal relationship between parent and child is fraught with wild swings in emotion, running the gamut from frustration to philosophy, letting go to love – in the midst of some that defy definition.
Moira Yuill speaks for all sleep deprived new parents when she drily observes, “People who say they ’slept like a baby’ generally don’t have any.” And the new father’s woes are articulated by Imogene Fey: “A man finds out what is meant by a spitting image when he tries to feed cereal to his infant.”
Childhood is a learning experience – oftentimes more for the parent, though it may be the second or even third time around. “Having children makes you no more a parent than having a piano makes you a pianist.” contends Michael Levine. Matrimony and parenthood has its champion in Peter de Vries who emphasizes that “The value of marriage is not that adults produce children but that children produce adults.”
For the child, “Childhood is measured out by sounds and smells and sights, before the dark hour of reason grows.” according to John Betjeman. Montaigne was ahead of his time when he asserted over four hundred years ago that “… children at play are not playing about; their games should be seen at their most serious-minded activity.”
On the flip side, Susan Lewis observes, “Children don’t need toys to play. My one-year-old is never happier than when he is unraveling an audio tape, wearing underwear on his head or making music by clinking a crystal ornament against the glass coffee table. And his favorite part of birthdays and Christmas is the chance to taste so many kinds of colored wrapping paper while everyone else is distracted with whatever is inside. Even my older children don’t need toys — they are quite content reprogramming my computer, taking apart the lens of my camera or face-painting with the makeup in my bathroom. It is parents who need toys. We need toys to keep our children away from our things.”
When a parent is involved in instruction there is an added bonus; as the Talmud puts it: “When you teach your son, you teach your son’s son.” J B Priestley reflects on the joy of a childhood relived, be it through a book, a song or an experience recounted: “To show a child what once delighted you, to find the child’s delight added to your own – this is happiness.”
This poignant feeling is expressed so well by Thomas S Jones, Jr in his evocative verse from the poem “Sometimes”:
“Across the fields of yesterday
He sometimes comes to me,
A little lad just back from play—
The lad I used to be.”
So parents would do well to empathize with their offspring as A Marcel proclaimed, “It is not for the young to understand us. It is for us to understand them. After all they cannot put themselves in our places, while we have already been in theirs.”
Some parents have have unnaturally high expectations, forgetting that, as David Elkind commented in his acclaimed work, ‘The Hurried Child‘, “… a child is an active, participating and contributing member of society from birth. Childhood isn’t a time when he is molded into a human who will then live life; he is a human who is living life. No child will miss the zest and joy of living unless these are denied him by adults who have convinced themselves that childhood is a period of preparation.”
And, as Carolyn Coats so succinctly put it, “Children have more need of models than of critics.”
Children can annoy and exasperate: “There are many questions that no man can answer and most of them are asked by 5-year-olds.” They can also cause anxious moments. Floyd R Miller speaks for the panic-stricken parent:
“Even much worse than a storm or a riot,
Is a bunch of kids who are suddenly quiet.”
Also as Ogden Nash recited:
“Children aren’t happy with nothing to ignore
And that’s what parents were created for.”
Finally at the end of an exhausting day, Ralph Waldo Emerson remarks, “There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him asleep.”
© Sosha Srinivasan
I have a huge, huge collection of quotations collected over almost three decades – I possess a copy of the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations – but the most interesting are those I have jotted down over the years. I’ve managed to fill four notebooks and my guess is that the count runs into several thousands. My son says that it is a terrible method of recording anything, especially now, in the age of computers. He has been pushing me to input them on a PC. He even started a blog, publishing quotes from my collection that do not come up on Google search – rarequotes.wordpress - but it is a work in progress – getting along in fits and starts.
I often read through my collection (it’s almost scripture to me!). Recently I was struck by a common category several seemed to fall in. I got thinking – and scribbling – and here is the end result…
Memory is a way of holding on to the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose.”
- Kevin Arnold.
When I first read about blogs/blogging – I thought what could be less interesting about reading about someone’s life? Fiction, to me, had always seemed more interesting than life. (Confessions of a “bookmad” individual – to quote my son.) I have since come across the pits – dull as ditchwater meandering treatises, but also, happily blogs of the prolific, well traveled Mark Moxon (though www.moxon.net is not, technically speaking, a blog) and India’s very own Mrs. Fife – wonderfully humorous turn of phrase (jeete raho beti!)
I also decided my schooldays were interesting enough fodder for a blog… memories from my years at Cathedral & John Connon, Bombay (sorry Mumbai – old habits die hard) – Std 2 to Std 6 (1972-1976) – any CATs reading this? – and then at the International School of Tanganyika (IST) – Grade 7 to Grade 11 (1977-1981). Both schools have been catalysts - I owe a great deal of what I am – my personality, outlook, philosophy, call it what you may – to the influence of teachers there, as well as friends I made at both schools. Unfortunately it has been over a quarter of a century since I’ve been in touch with them….
I’d been trawling the Net for familiar names and a month or so ago I got lucky. I had tried a Norwegian study buddy’s name, Morten (from IST), got several matches but none that I could be certain of. Then in a, if I may say so, brilliant piece of detective work (though jealous critics may call me devious) I keyed in his kid sister’s name, and bingo! there she was, larger than life with photo ID to boot. She forwarded my mail and …
The truth is, I sat on it for a month. Why? I wasn’t sure of the reception I’d receive after 26 years – and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to keep up a regular correspondence… but I finally did, mostly on impulse.
I have tracked down a couple of other close friends from IST, one in the UK and one in the US of A – Anna, you are not going to believe what hit you! DuBois will have to make do with a phone call since I could only trace a telephone number with the means at my disposal…
The suspense builds up – will I get the cold shoulder – have I got the right number… ? Don’t go away, I’ll be right back with the most recent update of the breaking news…
While you wait, here’s a lovely poem called ‘Sometimes’ to think about – and remember …
Across the fields of yesterday
He sometimes comes to me,
A little lad just back from play—
The lad I used to be.
And yet he smiles so wistfully
Once he has crept within,
I wonder if he hopes to see
The man I might have been.
- Thomas S. Jones, Jr.
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