Love and Happiness: Discover Yourself Through Children

By Rajeev Ahuja

Why have children? I often put this question to parents and I get varied answers: For the sheer joy of having them around, to ensure the continuity of the family tree, to produce heirs, for security in old age, and so on.

Others say that children enrich their lives. But how? I've always wanted to hear more on this, but they usually stop short of giving a deeper explanation.

In fact, very few parents have been able to give expression to the learning experience they undergo in the process of raising or interacting with children. Raising children or educating them is not just a one-sided affair where all learning / teaching flows from the parents or teachers to the child-students.

Unfortunately, most parents tend to believe that this process is one-sided. However, it is by now a recognised fact that the reverse flow is equally important. The presence of children, without doubt, enriches our lives. But dealing with them also helps us become better human beings. For parents who are going through an exciting phase in their work life, spending time with their children is a costly proposition as it might involve making compromises that could affect their careers. "Doing well in our profession is a lot easier than dealing with children", confess some parents.

There are some mothers and fathers who make a conscious decision to actually slow down their pace of work to be able to devote more time to their children. There are others who take the easy way out by substituting material comforts in their children's lives to make up for their absence. Those who depend on maids and tutors to cater to their children's needs justify their actions by saying: "We are simply concentrating on doing what we are good at, leaving the children's care to professionals".

There are a few parents who have the time but who would rather not spend it on children for fear of getting left behind in the leisure activities of their peer group or there are those who get bored in the constant company of children. "Don't we have a life of own?" they ask. Others feel they are not adequately equipped - education or experience-wise, to cater to the growing needs of a modern-day child. All these responses are the result of either ignorance or lack of perspective about children. It is obviously not because of lack of goodwill or love for the child. Who doesn't want his or her child to do well in life?

Parental involvement in a child's upbringing is essential not only for the child's development but also for the evolvement of the parents. There is nothing wrong in worrying about one's career or in nursing ambitions but care should be taken that it is not at the expense of interacting with children and also learning from them.

Children can provide deep insights into human behaviour, especially since unlike when relating to adults, you are starting on a clean slate. You feel less inhibited, less reluctant with children than you do with grown-ups. Typically, since one associates more closely with one's own children than with those of others, this learning comes more readily when the children are one's own or raised in the same environment.

Patience and an unhurried attitude helps in a child-adult interaction. "How can explaining to your child for the umpteenth time, the difference between the alphabets ‘d' and ‘b' or teaching which shoe will go into which foot, be interesting?" wonder some exasperated parents. This is the challenge: How creative can you get in transmitting knowledge to a child? As you experiment with different ways of teaching your child, you also get to know things you never thought of before. The child and the adult end up learning from each other.

Children, in a way, help you discover yourself. This they do by exposing you to many unexpected situations, putting you in testing circumstances, asking embarrassing questions and even demanding explanations for things you normally take for granted. In the process, you tend to develop better control over your thoughts, speech, actions and moods. Dealing with children strengthens you emotionally, and stimulates your powers of reasoning.

Through their numerous questions, children make you recognise your own limitations. How many times has a junior school kid outsmarted you? You begin to appreciate that size, age and experience alone don't really matter. Children can make you feel young. They keep you mentally alert and physically active. They also keep you apprised of the changing times. If living is an art, as many people believe it is, children help you perfect this art.

(The author is a fellow at the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations, New Delhi)

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See also: Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Death and Dying, Body Mind and Soul)