Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Adieu 2012


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.