So when you help blow out
three candles from the little birthday cake and see a bigger and bolder version
of your daughter, you realize that three is a number indeed to reckon with! And
it is more a ‘coming of age’ for the mother than the daughter technically..I
see it more as a progression from the third world problems of motherhood to
more ‘strategic and higher’ forms of problems..You quit the sphere of nagging
and tactical miseries like nappies, food, milk, sleep et al..and you grow up to
deal with behavioral, development, education related problems…very ‘first
world’ … higher up in the so-called value chain of motherhood!
And for the first time I
was introduced to the rat race of urban schooling and it is the equivalent of a
B school admission lifecycle..! It commences with the preparatory and research
phase..then the tedious paperwork stage where everything has to be bared to the
school authorities..your annual report, balance sheet, horoscope, ancestors,
roots, region, religion…whatever it takes to impress or at the minimum receive
a call for consideration for the admission process! And then the process
culminates in the group discussion (outside the principal’s room) amongst the
‘newly-found awaiting admission’ fraternity of parents..the interview of a
shivering, shy little being and then the final symbol of acceptance – a request
for a cheque!
And you see yourself forcefully
progress from the world of vaccines and theories of feed and solids to the
slightly ‘up-market’ talks of syllabi..the thousand ways to raise a super-child
that the internet generously bestows upon you..and the transition is not within
your control..the internet, the city’s schools and parenting ‘precedence’
decide your next steps in a child’s progress! And I wonder at the weird
concoction of quasi adults that play schools and play groups try to make of
your innocent tots…of the fictitious rat race that you are asked to run for the
sake of gaining admissions to a ‘reputed’ school (the word itself carrying
different meanings to different parents and quite debatable)..the insane
interviews that the world expects you to prepare your child for..but that’s
when I realized that my risk and rebel streaks were slightly eroded when it
comes to deciding the future of my child and I meekly surrendered to the
‘order’ of the day!
It is but a twisted world..where a little child is judged from her crawling speed to her vocabulary to her social skills…where she is expected to display virtues that were never present in her parents to start with…and a birthday is nothing short of a journey where you lose your little infant to the yawning ways of the world!
