Introspection time ..

The lingering worry now a days in my head is about what kind of parents would we be. And as all worries in my head go, they start with the germ of an idea and extrapolate themselves into an all consuming frenzy.
Both hubs an me like to watch tv, ok let me rephrase that, we both love to vegetate in front of the tv. I have often caught him sit in front of the tv with eyes glazing over and him not really watching anything ! But thats his way of relaxing after a long days work. And the number of times, i sit in front of the TV but do my own thing (like surfing or chatting) is beyond counting. I guess we both like the idea of the TV being on. And when we do actually watch it, I find that we have this immense capacity to actually watch any rubbish. I think TV channels are thriving coz of people with very low expectations like us :) TMZ, showbiz tonight, American choppers, crappy sitcoms, anything at all !!

How are we going to discipline a kid when we have such low concepts of TV watching ourselves not to mention insane addiction to it ? Worst of all, how the hell are we gonna stop ourselves from watching all of our usual nonsense to avoid undue influence on the kid.. I mean i know I have a dedicated nursery and all, but I seriously doubt if Tingu's gonna entertain our deluded ideas of "yeah, the baby will play in the baby;s room, where else !"

It scares me to no extent.. I like to live my lofty notions that I have an idea about how I want my kid to grow up. Well.. ummm.. the notion is fine but I think i will soon have the face the realization that I don't quite know how I will get that to happen.

We are both from simple middle class families with very similar upbringing. We have had to struggle in our own ways and things that were out of reach of our parents were simply forgone with no questions asked. Our grown up lives are different now, and with the kind of life style/ careers/ education, I think we have transcended to a different socio economic demography different from our parents. Now we spend without any questions asked. And since we can, we rarely would like to forgo anything at all. So, we spend with added zeal !

The frugality of a middle class existence may have been drudgy at that point, but I think they had a good part in life lessons learnt. How the hell do we teach similar things to the kid when we ourselves do not like to compromise anymore ! Impulsive splurging on holidays taken at the drop of the hat or new car accessories have become a norm and we brush it away saying we live only once, why not !
How are we going to teach a kid value of money and that things will not come by when we want it ? Or even worse, that you dont always get what you want..(when each day in our live is exactly the opposite, the pursuit of getting exactly what we want!)

How do you teach the value of disappointments, trials and failures when your generation itself is not very adept at dealing with it ? I hate disappointments, I do.. I have always done that since childhood. I take it to extremes where I dont venture into things that i am either not confident about or know that I am not good at ranging from sports to new initiatives. I just dont like to fail. So, I would rather just stick to things that I am good at.

What kind of a teaching is that to a kid ?

How do you teach the value of money and saving when you yourself don't quite practice that ? :) And this is funny especially because my mom has been repeating this sentence like a parrot for the last 10 years ever since I started working ! I dont think most of people in my age bracket really save up money before buying something or plan for it beforehand. We first buy and then we plan to accommodate that cost in our lives.. If we don't have ready cash, we do overdrafts, credit cards, EMI's... there are many ways to do it :))

They say that you usually know whats the right thing to do when u have a kid.. i doubt the very concept of it, but for the sake of my sanity, I really hope thats true..