This is a post that has been long in the drafts folder. I
usually start stuff as a mail compose so that my mailbox automatically stores
it as a draft to be picked up later. But the trouble with that, is the procrastination
that rarely brings you back to complete the draft post.
So, I am trying to mash up multiple posts that never got
finished in 2012 and in the spirit of keeping this blog alive, am making a
summary post.
2012 has been the blurriest and most tiring year in a long
time. There have been years that have flown by but they were mostly momentous
you know. They had so many moments and periods of time that were so memorable
that the memory justifies why the year flew by. 2012 for me was not like that.
For some reason it was a very very busy year with almost nothing that I could
look back and say wow, now that made it all worth it.
We usually take a vacation every quarter, a long weekend, a
long drive or something like that and about once a year around the year end, we
take about 2 weeks off to get away somewhere. Last year we took exactly 1
vacation and that too required so much planning that at one time it was almost
too exhausting to plan a vacation. That to me is such a sad thing to happen to
anyone. And I can’t really pin point exactly why it became like that.
I also think it was the year where R and myself were so
preoccupied in our own silos and became as distant as we can be as a couple and
that probably contributed to the aforementioned. We were too busy at jobs and
being parents and being there for family that we have forgotten to be a couple.
It is a common fact that many things out of the window few years into a marriage
but the fact that we allow it to, is unpardonable and this year I want to see
if we can change that.
V is growing up nicely and is turning into a charming boy.
It has been a year when I have consciously applied so many child psychology
principles to daily life that it’s not funny! The older generation will smirk
at it and probably say that even without any new gen psychology we raised you
just fine. But see, that’s my point, I don’t want to raise my son ’just fine’.
I want to do my best, I want him to be his best and I want us as parents to set
an example for him to go and get the world! If we want our kids to succeed the
easiest thing is to set such examples for them and if you want them to take on
the world, show them how. Because they are watching, believe me. They are
watching you and observing every action of yours. A child’s primary role models
are parents and that is a daunting responsibility as well as an easy out.
Both my mother and MIL have said on multiple occasions that
I am very lucky V is such an obedient and disciplined child. I have wanted to
scream my lungs out that no child comes out all disciplined into this world. Of
course there are kids who are hyperactive and introverts. But the majority of
kids are averagely normal and start out as clean slates. We are the ones who
make them what they are. If you see a child who throws a tantrum or bullies other
kids, look at the parents coz that’s where it all stems from. Some from lack of
discipline, some from lack of time or some from sheer lack of consideration and
sensitivity. I don’t want to take all the credit, he is a lovely child but I
think what most people fail to see is that the easiest way to teach a child
manners is to create an atmosphere where people around him are well mannered. Then
you actually don’t need to teach anything, they observe, they learn.
I have heard so many people say that Kids who grow outside
of India are so well mannered and polite and it gets my goat. Kids growing up
in India are not taught to be polite because their parents are not. Kids are
not magically going to learn anything or demonstrate anything unless they see
it practiced in front of their eyes. Indians in general are rude and not
courteous. I see that all around me, we do not let others pass before we do, do
not open the door for anybody, infact do not even smile and say hello to anyone
and that is a basic cultural issue. But the very same (not all but many) people
when they travel abroad or live outside of India fall in line with the culture
of the western world. It’s like we are saying my Sorry’s, Please and Thank You’s
are reserved for the outside public and people at home don’t deserve that.
I do not want to raise my child like that. In my house we
are very generous with Please, Thank You’s, Sorry’s and Excuse Me. Despite how
I was or was raised, ever since the time V came around, I have consciously
tried to show him that etiquettes are non negotiable. I am not hesitant or ashamed
to apologize to my kid. Infact the number of times I have said Sorry to V in
the last 3 years of his life is exponentially more than I have said to my own
mother during my lifetime :P
But he picks up on that and says all his P’s and Q’s without
much need for an intervention.
One thing that I am still working on is in the social skills
area where I would really like him to take an initiative and join a group or play
with someone. He takes after me in the sense that he is very happy by himself
and is less of a self initiator especially when it comes to seeking someone out
to play. He is not anti social and mixes well but takes his own time and it is
almost always at his discretion. It’s not a bad thing and even if that is how
his personality develops, I guess I am ok with that J
He has learnt so much this year that it boggles my mind at
times. I always find it fascinating and wonderful that they start out knowing
literally nothing and how quickly they learn so much – language, analytical
thinking and cognitive behavior. It’s a beautiful feeling.
It has been an eventful year for R where he made a much
warranted move and is still getting used to it. He also checked stuff off his
bucket list that kept him busy for a good part of the year.
But it hasn’t been a very good year for me as an individual,
as a person. It has been a good year as a mother and that is it. It has been an
extremely stagnant year as a professional and extremely detached and an emotionally
detached year as a wife. But as a person, for myself it has been the worst year.
There has been nothing new that I did or learnt or changed about my life. I
also did not take out as much Me time that I would have liked to, to just
indulge myself and do things that I want to do.
And I want to change that in 2013. At the risk of sounding
selfish I want the new year to be for me and about me. I want more time to be
myself and spend of myself as a person. I want to concentrate on my needs a
little more and learn to prioritize them and not be the lowest priority in my
own list. I also want to work on being a better couple or else we will turn
into one of those couples are just Mom and Dad and nothing else at home. That’s
my worst nightmare. We expect things to go somewhere, get better but rarely do
anything about it and even if we do, its half baked with not the same level of
commitment that used to be there before. We take everything for granted because
we just haven’t had to work hard at this. But
After 8 long years, I think we have reached a point of no return
where if we do not invest in changing things and work hard at it, there is no turning
back.
I hope 2013 brings us and everyone around us a lot of
happiness and grit to do things that we want to but never got around to.
