THE GREATEST GIFT YOU CAN EVER GIVE TO YOUR PARENTS

Pic.:Bhushan Thakkar

This morning, an eleventh-standard boy, in my class, prompted me to take a break from teaching the subject I was supposed to teach – Accountancy… and, go on a marathon forty-minutes lecture on what I thought was a thousand times more important than those accounting principles…

The subject I chose to lecture on was: Why do parents worry so much about their young-adults?

This young-boy’s parents, like many others’, did a great deal of worrying. They were both working parents, and, their concern and anxiety was quite understandable… The boy’s marks were poor, he seemed uninterested in things he did… almost lost. So, like most working parents, these parents, too, operated from a nagging guilt inside, that they had, perhaps, not given enough time for their child when needed… And, the constant coaxing, and nagging had only made things worse… The boy’s motivation had gone down and, something had to happen within him to arrest that phase…

“The greatest gift you can ever give to your parents,” I reminded my students in the course of our discussion, “is a well-meant promise that you would take care of your life.”

“Your ‘life’ means your daily little-things, including your dream, your desire to achieve it, your focus, your passion and motivation… Yes, your distractions, your friends, your hobbies and habits… Yes, your world is made of these little things… And, all that is needed of you is a sincere look at the way these things are managed by you now… If things are not going right, you need to get up and align yourself… And, tell your parents, with all your honesty, that you will do in life what your heart wants to do, and you will do it with all that your heart possesses… Dad/Mom, please rest assured, I will take charge of my own things; please trust me. Relax.”

Imagine, what a huge relief that can be?

For parents, it is a massive strain to carry when they have to constantly remind their young-ones about their goals, studies, motivation, friends, habits and distractions… Yes, as parents, we all have to be concerned about our children, as we want best for them… We do not want them to go off-track and regret later in life… Every parent worries on these issues…

And, that’s why I was talking, this morning, not to the parents… I was not telling them, “Please strop worrying… Do the best you can and trust that everything will go well with your children.” Yes, I wasn’t talking to parents, this morning. I was talking to their young sons and daughters in my class. I was asking them, “As young-adults, how can you reduce your parents’ anxiety?”

Not having to constantly worry about their young children – their choices, habits, studies, motivation, friends, distractions etc - can be the greatest relief to any parent. I was telling my young-students, today, that they had to realize this sensitive state early in life… and, that they had learn to sincerely communicate to their parents that they were old-enough to take charge of their affairs in life…

Are these young-ones really ‘old-enough’ to promise their parents, “Dad/Mom, trust me, I will take charge of my things?”

I think, they are.

Incidentally, I happened to watch this video clip just before I had started typing this Post. Hope, it has some connection with what I have tried to convey in this Post…

GERALD D’CUNHA
Video courtesy: YouTube