Tag Archives: relationships

Dec23

Of growing up, growing old and letting go

Posted on by
Standard
Of growing up, growing old and letting go

Of growing up, growing old and letting go…..

I have no excuses for not having written for such a long time. 3 years to be precise and I can’t even blame writer’s block since I am hardly a writer 🙂 But as I read what I have written previously and I can see that it literally seems like a different lifetime. I still feel very passionately about many things and those things have changed as I have moved through the various phases of my life. I write when I have something to say, something I feel so strongly about, but I just can’t seem to get it out through the spoken word. My head has millions of thoughts that are going through and so writing to me has been about getting those thoughts out of my system – what I can’t say out loud and yet my written words speak so loudly on my behalf.

Of late and ever so often I have been thinking about what my life is all about and what the meaning of my life is. I guess when you hit your 40s you do start to question what you want from your life – after all I am perhaps in the second innings and I want to know what I have to show for it. So much is the conundrum in my head that I even named my Instagram handle (@still_soul_searching), simply putting it my soul searching state of mind. It’s the search for the peace of my soul and the passion to drive my inner being perhaps

While the 40s may have brought out the more confident me, a man who perhaps now realises that you only live once and so Carpe diem, my friends. I now speak my mind and clearly stand up for what is right, no matter the consequences. After all, I want to sleep well at night knowing that I did the right thing. But my life hasn’t got any simpler, and actually does it ever? On the one hand, your children get older and need you less and less and on the other hand, your parents grow older and perhaps need you more and more. Such is the irony of life and makes you wonder how you can be the best parent and also the best son. All the while ensuring that your spouse does not get left behind as you try and juggle what you need to do for those who may need you the most.

We recently celebrated my daughter’s 11th birthday and the more I see her, the more I realise that my little girl isn’t so little anymore. She’s blossoming into a fine young lady with a mind and a life of her own. Not sure where that leaves her old man really !!! But I always knew this would happen. We always wanted for her to be a strong person and making choices and then living through them as well. Even though, sometimes those choices may not be what you may have expected or even not be you. Perhaps one of the greatest joys and also the greatest pain of being a parent is when you can give your children the ability to make their own decisions and in the process, you are not in the final decision that they make. I hope the choices she makes now make her life more wonderful and fulfilling and include everyone around her who are important to her. I cannot make her choose what should be important to her and I can only guide her towards that. But the decision must be her own and I hope she will always remember me as the father who may have guided her but always let her choose. As the father who never forced his views on her – when many a time he may have wanted to scream and tell her to choose him!!!!! I believe in a higher power and I believe in karma and so I believe that it will all come back to us in this lifetime itself. So do your best and don’t hope for the rest. Perhaps it is now the time to let go. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t hurt when we were not her choice but then I put myself in her shoes and go back 25 years or more and think of exactly the choices I made when I was a kid – only now the roles were reversed and I was facing those choices, as perhaps my parents would have done. It’s funny how life comes through a full circle.

In the process, I have become more aware of my parents and their needs, after all they aren’t spring chickens anymore 🙂 They may have too much self-respect to say out loud that they need me – not financially but more emotionally. For me to be there regularly when they want so speak their minds or just hear someone speak theirs. But growing old brings with it, its share of challenges and requirements – both health and well-being and it’s funny how we now have names and explanations for all kinds of medical conditions that we just thought of as symptoms of ‘old age’ when we were growing up. Being forgetful was just what grandparents did at their age when we were kids but now we have all fancy names for such medical conditions. I think I liked it better when life was simpler. When I was the younger one and could look upto someone to guide me through all the tough decisions in life, when I was not the mature one, when I was not the person who everyone looked upto to decide what should be done. When I saw my parents as the guides and not as the ones that needed to be guided. Nowadays I look at my mother and I see an innocent child, a child who gets joys at the smallest of things and who can get upset also at the smallest of things. But just like a child, it is soon forgotten from her memory and she goes back to being the most lovable person I have ever met. As Carl W Buehner has rightly said They may forget what you said — but they will never forget how you made them feel. Same is with my mother and makes me realise how little it takes to make her happy and while she may not remember what I said, she will never forget how I made her feel. The loving hugs, when I paint her nails or her worries when I am unwell. But I am not her and I don’t completely know how to handle it all the time – I do get confused and do let off steam but it doesn’t get us anywhere. I know she never did that when I was a child and she would patiently make sure that she taught me the right thing, without ever making me feel small. Perhaps I have a long way to go in being a better parent or just a better adult when I connect with my mother and maybe with a lot of others as well. So life is tough and yet life is simple.

I had met a professional once who had very wisely told me that the 40s are the perhaps the most trying times of our lives – on the one hand, our children don’t need us as much and on the other hand our parents start needing us more. It’s how you balance the disappointment of the former with the responsibility of the latter that makes us better adults and more caring and responsible human beings.

I guess in this entire process, I have perhaps grown up a little. Still stumbling my way through managing disappointments in my life, to accepting the choices that my daughter makes to trying to be a better son and sometimes a better parents to my parents. I have been lucky to have a partner who has always been way more mature than her years and someone who will knock some sense into me one way or the other. I guess, somewhere I my heart I know, that with her, I can still be a carefree child sometimes, when it gets too much and she will be there, solid as a rock to pull me through. No one said life would get easier as you went along and maybe I will look back one day to all that life has had to offer and I will smile and remember that I made someone smile after all ‘SOMEDAY YOU WILL JUST BE A MEMORY TO SOMEONE. MAKE SURE YOU ARE A GOOD ONE’.

Aug17

Of burping babies, changing diapers and sleepless nights – part Deux

Posted on by
Standard

It seems like ages ago when my daughter was born – I was just into my thirties, still young enough and naïve to the duties and responsibilities of being a father – a good father actually. Believing I could change the world of parenting and come up with my solution to what ails the world. It has now been seven years and I am not sure if I have been able to find the fix to all parenting problems. I, now closer to forty prepare for part deux. As this realisation dawns on me, I pause, look back at my years as a father and what it has taught me. With the benefit of hindsight, I can now make the choices to do what I did well in raising my daughter and avoid the mistakes. While I have so much more to learn, I continue everyday as I watched my daughter grow from an infant, to a toddler to a very pretty young girl with the ferocious mind of her own. Putting all this down to what I believe is sacrosanct and clearly non-negotiable, I get ready for the back nine. So what have I, the ‘wise one’ really learnt….

Firstly, always respect their mother. And I mean always. It may seem easy and maybe even surprising to many who read this, after all isn’t that the bedrock of raising a child and having a family. But life is not as simple as it seems – especially if the parents are no longer together and sometimes even when they are. You may have had your reasons to break up which you believed was for the best for everyone. You may have many moments when you both disagreed and made it unpleasant for each other and said things you regret but we are human after all. As I write this now, I realise it’s not single parent families that need to deal with this and even regular couples have their moments of disagreement. But your child need not see any of that. Your views about each other are personal to you both only. All we need to do is to ensure that we respect each other in front of them and they know that. After all, the way you treat their mother will set the benchmarks for how your son should treat women in his life or how your daughter will expect to be treated and vice versa.

Secondly, learn to let go and de-control (is that even a word). Let them be children, that’s what they are. There will be enough time for them and you to grow up and you will be very soon reminiscing about the wonder years and what they did when they were at different ages. We need memories of their childhood as much as they do and losing it by making them grow up too soon. Encourage them to stop and smell the flowers as Robert Frost would say J Let them make mistakes, after all we will always be there to pick them up after a fall, but they would have learnt so much. We cannot protect them from everything in life, and rob them of life’s experiences. Let go as much as you can, little at first and more later.

Thirdly, be their friend but always a parent first. This is a cardinal rule that I live by. I would love to be their best friend and maybe someday I will be, but I am the father for a reason. The forty years of my existence do chalk up to quite a few experiences myself and I will make sure that some lines are not to be crossed at all and there I will be the father whether they like it or not. I may not win the popularity contest at that time but I will have the satisfaction of doing the right thing – something I believe all children do inclulcate in them at some time or the other.

It may appear that I contradict myself by advising to let go and let them have their experiences and yet choose to play the father card when it would suit me. But I disagree and believe that with my experience as an adult and a father I can make a more informed decision on when to let go and when to be the father they hate. I know when they are older they will appreciate the vetos I did as much as I appreciated when my parents did it for me. Life is all about the choices we make and sometimes more experience just determines when to play which role.

Fourthly, make them sensitive to others and the environment around them. Life has changed and simple concepts that we knew so well are now so different. The family as we knew it is not the only one – there are single parents, divorced parents, step children, half children, parents of the same sex. There are people not as fortunate as us, people with special abilities or less fortunate than us materially. Teach them to understand everyone and appreciate what God has created. Let them now always say ‘Why me’ but understand ‘Why not me’. There are so many things to be grateful for and our children need to appreciate what they have and also be sensitive and aware of the world around them. Let their best friend be the girl ‘who sees with her hands’ or those who have two mommies and two daddies. The world is not what it used to be and children are quicker to understand that – if only someone would show them that.

Lastly and most importantly, the greatest bequeath we can leave our children are roots and wings. I grew up in a middle class Indian home, with an army officer for a father and a teacher for a mother. I have seen the effort they have put in to give us the best of what was possible, often at the expense of their own desires. We got what we needed and we appreciated what we got. Today I may no longer be seen as a middle class person but I live by the ethos of my upbringing – values of integrity, honesty, respect and responsibility. As a father I want my children to know where they come from and while they may have a lot more compared to me, they must always be guided by the values of the Indian middle class. Always appreciative of what we have and at the same time being fearless enough to chase our dreams.

I am the one that shall give them the confidence of being grounded yet daring to fly.

Oct24

Part time father, full time daddy

Posted on by
Standard

The alarm goes off sharp at 6AM on the Monday morning. Lazily, I turn around and hit the snooze button. Ten minutes are precious and with that I turn around and drape my arms around the little bundle that is rolling all over the bed.  I finally hit the shower at 6.30 while my daughter gets her milk and my wife begins the ritual of getting her ready for school.  We need to leave at 7.30 and its always a mad rush with us just about make it to the car, after the customary goodbyes and ‘see you on Friday’ routine……

The school bus picks her up from her mother’s place and the mother and daughter catch up over the next ten minutes before we get her onto the bus – her mother goes off into the apartment building and I drive off to work…. Well that’s the culmination of the weekend that I have spent with my kiddo until the next weekend.

I lose track of the day and get home later in the evening to what seems like much quieter and emptier house – there is no noise of small feet coming running towards me, ready to jump on me with a hug or a visibly upset little girl boxing me with all her might when she her daddy does not understand her :).  Yeah, it is much quieter and an evening that I clearly dread every day of the week.  I realise, that its amazing as I have been used to this routine to over three and a half years now and yet every Monday seems like the first.  I am not a man to exaggerate, but every Monday morning leaves a void that slowly gets filled as the week moves on only to split wide open the next week.

My wife and I sit, discuss the day, watch some TV and invaibly end up laughing at all my daugter’s antics over the weekend. Yeah, Mondays are depresessing for the world and for me even more so.  I have a shorter fuse, I don’t have time for anyone really and I just want to sit with my drink at the end of the day and not have to worry about anyone else. Wishing to drown away every other thing that surrounds my existence right now….

Every Monday I keep wondering whether I could have done things differently, been a better husband or a better parent to have avoided this dual life that my child now needs to lead.  She clearly associates weekdays with ‘mumma’ and weekends with ‘papa’.  As she has grown over the years, I have tried connecting with her during the week so she knows that I miss her and love her through the week. But not even being five years old right now, she clearly has other priorities when daddy calls her in the middle of play time with friends.  Even then, she will come speak with me, tell me what she’s upto before she runs off to play.  The girl’s a sweetheart and breaks my heart even more.

So what do I really do on the weekend – hmmm… I make sure I feed her atleast two to three meals myself, give her one bath atleast, help her select her clothes (but with her sense of fashion she doesn’t need too much help from daddy :)), help her with her homework – we agree on a schedule of what needs to be done and when, read her a couple of stories at bedtime (if she has already not passed out with all the activity over the day), take her to a mall where daddy and kiddo play games together (she does bring out the kid in me as we race cars and zoom on bikes in the gaming arcade :)).  In between, she will run off with her young friend, who she calls her little sister, go play with my bro’s pet beagle, catch a nap together, top up daddy’s drinks with ice and also watch an overdose of ninja hattori…

We make sure she gets to bed on time on Sunday night so she is bright on Monday morning and by the time its Sunday night, both my wife and I are sombre – not always because we are tired of having done much but just dreading the quiet that would descend on the house next week.

In such weekends, I have often had a conversation with my daughter which goes something like this

Me – So sweetheart, papa is really going to miss you during the week. Will you also miss me?

Kiddo – I will miss you too papa

Me – so sweetheart why don’t you stay back with papa – after you go papa will be all lonely and so sad…..

Kiddo – but I will back no papa?  Hmm… When will I come back????

Me (smiling ) – on Friday

Kiddo – see papa, I will be back on Friday, mumma also must be missing me no ?

So much of sense is a body so small is crazy and amazing. I just hope I can be level headed enough to match this pint sized person.  I can’t argue much with that and more often than not I will end up giving her a kiss as we move back to whatever we were doing before that.

So it always brings me back to the question as to whether I am really doing enough to make a lasting and positive impact on my child’s life?  I remember recently reading many articles which stressed on how fathers should spend atleast a couple of hours a day with their children, understanding their day, having a conversation, reading them stories and just connecting with them at some level so that they build that long term relationship with their child.  Well, I really don’t have the option do I?  All I can do is make sure that I connect with her during the week as much as I can or she permits with the hope that she will be more willing as she grows up and yearns for more daddy time…..

And this situation does drive me a little to paranoia most of the time – to ensure that I really get enough face time with her and yet she has fun when she comes over. After all, after a few years, she will most likely choose her friends over her ‘fuddy duddy’ daddy anyways and unless she has fun here this face time is likely to reduce even further.  So trying to be involved and maybe doing many of the things that regular dads do over the space of a week I need to sometime cram into the two precious days I have with her.  My biggest fear and also my biggest driver being that I will look back on my life and realise that I really don’t have a bond with my daughter. That is by far my greatest fear……

I recently read a proverb which I had long since forgotten – “Any man can be a father, but it takes a special person to be a dad”

I became a father nearly five years ago, but I hope I make a dad at some point in my life and there will really be no proof other than the bond I will share with my daughter.

Feb4

The pursuit of happiness

Posted on by
Standard

I have just returned from work and it’s been a regular day –not very hectic or a one that would totally sap the energy out of me. I look at my watch and its 8.30PM, hmmm not bad. I get out of my jacket into a pair of shorts and one of my oldest and scraggy t-shirts. Looking at it, I wonder why I even wear it now. It’s one of the oldest and has clearly run the course of its useful life, but it is the most comfy and just feels like second skin. Casting that thought aside, I pour myself a glass of single malt and park my ass in front of the TV in my new and improved living room (I have had my house re-decorated since the split and tried to just clear out a lot of the memories from the past). It’s been my ritual now and I am in my comfort zone – surfing channels, having my dinner and crashing to bed, hoping to get up in time to hit the gym before work.

I then realize, it’s a thursday evening and my daughter comes home tomorrow and I need to wrap up everything before the weekend so we can truly spend ‘papa-beti’ (father daughter) time together doing absolutely nothing on the weekend 🙂 all together, just the two of us….. I like that!!!! But something is different today and somehow in one of my moods, and I ask myself – AM I HAPPY? Just like all the other non-simple questions – this too must be broken down and analysed.

So here goes. My life has been pretty predictable since the split. I focus on wrapping up work during the week, enjoy the evening with my single malt and some actual real live friends 🙂 (and I have a few very nice ones) and spend time with the daughter on the weekend. It’s sort of a routine but I have gotten used to it. Truth be told, I have not really dated much since the split (since we are telling truths, have not dated at all really :)) but there’s been no time. Yes, I have missed a companion and there have been some occasions when I have had this strong urge to call my ex. But I was most likely a little wasted, alone and the logical thing to do was to delve into the past. But over a period of time, realization finally dawned on me, that I did not miss my ex, as a person. I really just missed a companion. While I didn’t like being alone, those times were few and far between and the hum drum and chaos of daily life really did not let me ponder on such thoughts t too much. I didn’t want to be in a relationship just because I was alone – that’s the worst foundation to a fresh start. So I brush this thought aside and think, yeah, am not sad, life is good and if am not moping about am happy……..Logical? Well, seemed to be.

That was 8 months ago. A month later, a dear friend of mine, very reluctantly and cautiously broached the topic to trying to set me up with her colleague. My friend, who shall remain nameless, like everyone else in the blog, works in a different city and my first reaction, was to tell her that she had completely lost her mind. Relationships were clearly not my forté and long distance ones to boot…phew…But I agreed, with the clear understanding that I was not committing to anything and if it did not work out there would be no hard feeling. Finally and above all, this mystery lady would need to understand that my daughter would always be the single most, top of the line, priority in my life. That was that.

Nothing happened for the next few weeks but co-incidentally, I was travelling to the city on work fairly soon and we were officially set up. For the sake of anonymity, lets juts call her X. As I got ready to go, I picked out what I thought was my best black suit (it was a formal client meeting), nice tie and a dress shirt which everyone told me really fit me well 🙂 I had been working out, so if the lady, got a hint of the decent chest and nice(ish) arms under the shirt why not 🙂 If you are back in the ring, might as well dress to impress. I also could not help but realize how nervous I was. It was like being seventeen again. The pressure to impress, the pressure make intelligent, good conversation, the pressure, the pressure the pressure!!!! Gawd, I dealt with professional client situations better than this…. Here I was worrying about meeting X. Why?

Cutting a long story short, I really did not make intelligent conversation and was infact a bumbling idiot. How I behaved that night was clearly not something I would like to reproduce in print but all I can say was that I was looking at all the wrong places (since I am telling the truth here – I thought she was smoking hot) and saying the wrong things :). I was like a puppy with my tongue hanging out on a hot summer day and drooling to my heart’s content :). My experience (here it is mine) is that men (read I) can’t make intelligent conversation when am distracted by hot women around. And the best part was that she knew it and was enjoying this 30+ year old man make a fool of himself. But I just knew that there was something there. By the next day it was as if I had known her for a very long time. She understood me, my idiosyncrasies, my tantrums, my attention seeking ways, my love for my daughter and also made me feel like a good man. It was a great feeling after a very long time.

It was not right but it was natural for me to compare situations now and with my ex and I realized that I was in a much happier (???) place now. Life was good, I missed X and not just ‘a’ companion and being in different cities, for the first time in 3 years I stared feeling lonely when I was alone. My logical mind couldn’t really understand what was happening here and I would always try and find some fault or the other and an excuse to be unhappy (?) and go back to the time of no expectations, no other person that I needed to worry about.

It was in one of those evenings with my single malt that I really got thinking all over again. I had been there and done that. I had experienced the entire expectations that came with a relationship. Was I ready for that all over again? I had been on my own for over nearly three years now. I was used to having to deal only with my emotions, my feelings, the expectations that I set for myself and no one else. Was I ready to make space for someone else in my life and not just in my closet? Was it really worth the effort anymore? As I had realized, I was not unhappy or sad. I had my own routine and I had made my peace with it. I had no time to think of anything or anyone else. Was it all worth it? Was I ready to start all over again? And more importantly, did I want to? I would be hitting the dreaded four O in a few years and really did a man need a companion after that? Was your life really not about your children after that????

Then I looked at the little girl lying next to me and I wondered – as a parent was it not my duty to think of her before I thought of myself? Isn’t that what being a parent is all about? I was now a father and was that not it…… How would she comprehend the entire change in my personal life and how would she accept or understand it? Was it not my duty to see what was best for her? And I would always have her….. She needed me, even if it was only on the weekends. Was that not enough? Should I not make her the sole focus of my life and make sure my being is really revolving around her. After all, I was her father???? I could never be ‘the mother’ but that’s the least I could do as her father……

I just could not figure out how to analyse this entire situation that I was in. In was torn in the need to be the best father possible and also embrace the woman who really made me feel alive all over again. It was really tough, dealing with what I felt was the guilt of at some level ‘betraying’ my little one of trying to have a life that had something more than just her. She would always be my little girl and would always need her daddy. Could I really risk trying to focus on something else? What if she were to need me at the precise moment that I was busy with my own feelings? What if she never understood why I was not there for her? Would she forgive me and more importantly, would she understand? And I just had no clue…..

I spoke with X and always told her of the dilemma that I was going through and she just told me one simple thing – to just go with the flow and see where this led. Why create the pressure of significant expectations and try and find fault and convince ourselves we could never be happy? Hmm… seemed like a logical thing to do.

But it was not the easiest thing to do. To top it all, how soon was too soon? It had been less than 3 years since the split? Was there not a required waiting period before I threw my hat into the dating ring and sounded out that I was ready all over again? Aren’t men expected to wait longer to ensure that they are not labeled as cads? When did this period really end and when would it be ok to be seen with a woman other than my ex? Would there ever be such a time? As always I never had any answers…

I did mention that my extended family (my friends) had really been very instrumental in keeping me together. Infact my ‘bro’ once told me ‘dude, whenever you are wasted and have the urge to call your ex – just call or text me….I will be your 2AM friend :)” sounded perfect. The one time that I did call him, when I was wasted and needed to avoid making a fool, he did not take my call and it was only midnight 🙂 Very sheepishly, he told me next morning “dude, I fell asleep. I must be the worst 2AM friend ever” The guy had good intentions and knowing that was good enough.

Coming back, X made such an effort for the things important in my life, my daughter, folks, my friends (see above :)) and just about all that I cared for that I just knew she could not get away. And the fact that my daughter got along with her like a house on fire really sealed the deal.

A funny ritual that has developed over the last few months – we had just started dating and X sent me a text at 1PM saying ‘lunch?’ I responded with a very cool ‘yup’. This went on every day and now it’s become of our daily ritual. Same time, every day. Now I don’t even respond and I feel she does not expect a response either. But if I don’t get the text I am as surprised as she when she gets a response 🙂 Life is good, it’s comfortable, and I seem to be a relatively calmer and dare I say a much happier man?

But it is also due to my realization that not everything is controllable and sometimes you have to pick your paths and make your own decisions and live by them. They will determiner greatly your own state of mind and happiness. It’s weird now, when I see my ex these days and I don’t feel anything other than a small amount of regret. I used to feel angry, hurt, frustrated and now it’s been replaced by just a tinge of regret as I think I don’t see her as anything more than the mother of my child. It’s really sad, since at one point in my life, she was my life!!!! I have moved on, made peace with the past, accepted my mistakes and hopefully never to make them again. Life has a strange way of making one see perspective…….

I remember reading recently, where a woman said that she hated the movie Jerry McGuire. The whole idea of someone else completing you just did not make sense to her. After all, we are all ‘whole’ individuals, so why did we need for someone else to complete us? We should be with someone because we want to and not because we need to or because they complete us. A very interesting take I thought…..

So what’s really been my take from all of this? Just two things really.

Firstly, that we need to be happy personally and that will spread. Are we just so caught up trying to find our happiness through others – be it our children, our friends, our spouse, our family, whoever it maybe that we forget that we are individuals too? My daughter needs me now but in a few years she will have a life of her own. Can I really live my life around her completely? Children will soon have lives of their own and can we ignore our individual needs at the risk of being a bad parent? My personal happiness makes me a better father and I think my daughter does notice that. Don’t we owe it to ourselves to find what makes us happy as individuals and make us better people? Just because I am happy as an individual does not make me any less a father.

Secondly, the absence of sadness is not necessarily happiness……… I could go on with my life, the absence of change and potentially realize that there would be a day when I would have none. My daughter would still love me but have her own life to lead. She will always need her father and just because I have a relationship outside of her does not diminish the bond that we have.

So as I ask myself the same question today, I think I have a definite answer, yes I am happy and it’s not just the absence of sadness. The only catch being that we all have to take out own paths to find this happiness. Sometimes, it may take us days and sometimes it may take us even months or years. But don’t we owe it to ourselves and to everyone we love?

Jan19

The eternal conundrum

Posted on by
Standard

Just wait and watch out for the “hormone overdosed dude” she gets home to meet u…before u get the shotgun out reflect on the fact that in her eyes he is YOUR REPLICA!.  I was not sure what to make of this statement from my ‘Bro’.  Should I be worried that someday, my daughter, my little princess (who I hope will remain a cute little girl forever) would actually start dating and —–holy smokes—-get a guy to introduce to me???  I know these young fellas (I was one not so long ago) and I know what goes on in their twisted little minds :).

Or should I be happy, that my little girl would actually try to find pieces of me with some guy she wants to spend her life with?  So what I know for certain is that I don’t think any guy will ever be good enough for her and I will always see him as a loser.  Ok maybe not completely.  So I should be happy the she will find some loser who she thinks is like me 🙂 WOW, no one told me in parenting class 101 that I would need to deal with these kind of life altering decisions (in addition to changing diapers and cleaning soiled bums).

So I get thinking (I have been tending to do quite a bit nowadays) and think (ok I already said that before). When do kids really stop being your kids and when do you let go? Therefore the eternal conundrum – when does the cute as buttons little one become an adult with a mind of her own?  As a parent should I not protect her from all harm and make sure she is fine? Or should I let her make her own mistakes as she goes through life? Isn’t it one of the beauties of living that one really goes through so much and finally you have so much to really draw from?

My recent conversation with my 4 year old at 8PM on a friday as I drove back home from work

Kiddo – papa when will you get home?

Me – am driving baby I will be home soon

Kiddo – but why are you taking so long?

Me – because, sweetheart, there’s a lot of traffic as everyone is going home and papa is coming as fast as possible

Kiddo (without batting an eyelid) – but papa, why can’t everyone stay home so you can come home quickly?

All reasoning aside, can I really let such a sweet and innocent thing really stumble, fall, get bruised, hurt, cry, have her heart broken (by some jerk who was never good enough for her anyways), laugh etc etc while I put it all down to her tryst with life? As you can see, I quite suck at making parenting decisions and have no clue how to deal with this one.

As most wise people say (am told it’s no longer politically correct to say wise men…LOL) ‘time heals everything’ and I hope time will also provide me an answers to these questions and how to deal with such awkward situations. My dad, he was never the most expressive person when we were kids, but he always engrained in us that we had to experience our own lives and he and my mum would always be there for us.  For that I am eternally grateful.  I think I and my siblings are more independent adults primarily due to my folks. Not to say that we are not close to our parents but I think we have the ability to deal with whatever “googlies” (or curve balls as some people half way across the globe would say) the cosmic powers have to throw at us.

So, as always, I started off this rambling as an insecure dad dreading meeting the “hormone overdosed dude” and have reached the other end of the spectrum where am contemplating the little one flying off the nest and how to deal with all that would happen in between.

So my friends, now you know why the blogs are the ramblings of a confused man and I bet it all makes sense now……

It’s interesting now that I look back and think I have a lot more empathy for my ex father in law (may god bless his soul).  He was a very good man but somehow there was always something missing – he had a really quirky sense of humour but somehow I always felt that he held back when it came to me.  Maybe I did not try to hard (truth be told I was a much younger man and more truth be told…was quite scared of him too).  He was a man of uniform like my dad and had this aura about him which made me just a tad bit weak in the knees. So coming back to the point, I can totally relate to him now.  In me, he saw, a good looking but scrawny guy 🙂 (ok I was not the Greek god then that I am now :):)) and he said the same thing in his head as I do now “what the hell is my daughter doing with this loser? She can do so much better”.  We never really got the chance to bond but am pretty sure even if we did I would never have been able to measure up to the expectations he had for someone worthy of his daughter….

Such is life and I can see it coming across a full circle.

I recently read a small piece which I think summarizes the situation completely and really puts a lot into perspective for all us parents

Little girl and her father were crossing a bridge.  The father was kind of scared so he asked his little daughter, “Sweetheart, please hold my hand so that you don’t fall into the river”. The little girl said, “No, dad. You hold my hand.” “What’s the difference?” Asked the puzzled father. “There’s a big difference”, replied the little girl. “If I hold your hand and something happens to me, chances are that I may let your hand go. But if you hold my hand, I know for sure that no matter what happens, you will never let my hand go”. 

So my little sweetheart, your dad will never stop you from discovering your own life and making your own destiny. But he will always be there to pick you up and put you on your way when you do have a fall.  Your dad will, most likely, never find anyone good enough for you but will accept that in your best judgment he is the best for you and accept the compliment that you see some part of me in him. And finally, your dad will never let go of your hand but he will learn how to slowly let go for you to find your wings………

Jan15

Brothers in arms

Posted on by
Standard

Friends tend to play an integral part in one’s life and I may even stick out my neck – as much as family.  With family, many a time, one has to really consider that you don’t burden them when thing are not going right. No matter what they say, they will always worry and sometimes the pain it causes them is really not worth it. Friends, on the other hand, will always be concerned and be there for you but they also can be pragmatic and distance themselves emotionally from the situation.  As a dear friend puts it ‘sometimes you need to be transactional in your approach with a situation or person” devoid of the emotional baggage that may have been there. And family maybe cannot do it coz they are just so involved with you.

I believe that a fundamental difference between men and women really comes from their need or desire for friends. While a person’s circle of friends is largely driven by their personalities it is also, to some extent, influenced by their gender.  Without offending anyone, I think I have seen that women would tend to have more friends – the uplifter, the travel buddy, the truth teller, the girl who just wants to have fun etc. (truth be told – there’s some bit of Oprah and Cosmo in this profoundness :)).  So how many friends does a man need?  Well, a guy may have a lot of buddies but there will always be a ‘brother’ or bro…… There’s so much about the ‘bro code” that I will leave that for later.

I have been lucky enough to really have 2 bros in my life.  While they shall remain anonymous, like me, they entered my life at very different times and stages.  Yet today I cannot imagine my life being really complete without their individual contributions.

I met my first bro in school and we went onto become thick as thieves.  He was the cool dude who had a way with the girls. He could sing and very honestly there as not much that 16 year old girls wanted other than a boy to serenade them.  I never had that talent and we would always look upto him for juicy tid-bits and ‘lessons in smoothness’.   From 15 years old to now over two decades later, we have seen each other through relationships, marriages, kids and professional changes.  Today our lives are busy and we don’t speak as often but when we do – we pick up where exactly we left off – maybe a few weeks and sometimes a few months.  When we are together, we are still 17 year old ‘boys’ discussing the ‘girls’ that got away, the girls now and laughing at dirty jokes we found funny as adolescents .  He and I are living proof that boys are dirty boys, age notwithstanding.  We still laugh about how the higher power has gotten back at us by making us fathers of very pretty little girls :).  There are no expectations to continually be in contact or really keep asking what we are upto.  But we both know that the other will always be there when we need each other. I don’t see us any different even 20 years from now.

I met my second bro more recently, when I was going through a vulnerable stage in my life. I credit him for introducing me to the wonderful world of single malts. On that pure joy alone – he would qualify as a bro 🙂 but he has been so much more than that.  From giving pragmatic advice to counseling me to just beating sense into my head when it needed to be done. He was always there.  We met in the most unusual circumstances (which is separate blog in itself) and our friendship developed over some bar hopping, and half burgers in the wee hours of the morning (after all men in amazing physical shape as ourselves, could not afford the calories of a complete burger :)).  We’ve taken a road trip, got completely wasted and yet not been embarrassed the next morning…. Ok so it was more me than him…but that’s what bros are all about.  We can talk about sensible stuff (he talks more and I listen soaking in the knowledge being dished out) or just go back into the past when we were younger men, our school, the life and just be bumbling young men.

Funny story, that I was actually friends with his wife before we became bros….. She was my agony aunt and would listen to all my nonsensical rants and yet would give me common sense advice.  We have often laughed over her taking credit for connecting us and I can imagine her at some level being a little (just a little) jealous that I am actually writing about bros before I write about our friendship.  But she’s a sweetheart and would totally understand.

So I stand here today and realize that most men get through life with lots of buddies and maybe a bro and while I may not have many buddies but I have two totally cool bros who I would not trade for anything. So gents, take a bow for being such an integral part of my life.

If I had a hall of fame, you’d be the first on that!!!!!!!!!

Jan12

Mums, kids and the other parent

Posted on by
Standard

 As I sit down to write this piece, off the bat, I visualize two very distinct reactions 1) from the few guys that do read this – “dude, stop acting like a chick” and 2) from more mature people – “this boy still needs to grow up and understand life”.  Well, what the heck, it’s my blog and I write what I want.

So a small context to the entire piece – I am a divorced man on the wrong side of 30 with a 4 year old daughter, who lives with me on the weekends and vacations.  It appears that I suffer from an uncommon ailment called “insecurity” of “the concept”.  Don’t get me wrong, I am a good looking, confident and very modest man 🙂  but I just can’t seem to understand the entire society’s obsession with maa kya pyaar (a mother’s love)  when it comes to a child.  So the title of this piece and “The concept”.

Ever since I can remember – for the male species and in the last few years for me as an individual member of this species, it has been engrained into our psyche that we are the lesser parent.  Talk about the weaker sex!!!!!!  So we may be the most accomplished, confident men but when it comes to a child (no less our child)….dudes….you are never in the race of being a model parent.  It’s like you’re preparing to run the marathon and Usain Bolt has already won the sprint gold…..

Having never been at the receiving end of any discrimination I got a first real taste of this discrimination (not sure what else to call it) when my ex-wife (including her large family) would continually tell me that no matter what I did I would never understand the depth of a mother’s love for her child.  So don’t get me wrong, my ex is a good person and a fantastic mother, but it’s not really my fault that I did not carry our daughter for nine months, or give birth to her…hell knows, I guess, if it was biologically possible…I might have done it…. (note to self – google up the man who recently had a baby before making such claims in future).  Does that make me any lesser a parent that my daughter’s mother? NO SIR.

So when we do have these discussions, which re quite animated after a few drinks, informed people, then quote studies and tell me how it has been proven that both parents are equally important in nurturing a child. But (and there’s a big one here), the same people will not bat an eyelid and quote the dreaded words “but she’s the mother you know, understand that” at the first sign of my attempting to assert fatherly dominance in my daughter’s life.

This entire concept was further beaten into me during the entire legal process of the divorce. Starting from well-wishers and finally my lawyer nailing the coffin and telling me that the law would also favour the mother unless proven otherwise.  It’s like being guilty until proven innocent!!!!! Sure, my work schedule is tougher than my ex (like a lot of men), but would the courts even consider custody to the father if the professional roles were reversed… Am not a legal eagle but I think I know the answer there.

So this whole “concept” has been irritating me for a while now and by the time I have reached here, the few readers that I have, have already logged off at the nonsensical rambling of a lunatic.  But I shall continue for the pleasure of the few that persist 🙂  So what did I do next….like any reasonable tech savvy person, googled up to see if there was some godforsaken formula or something where I could input some random data and see a result that said — dude, you are actually more important than your ex – to your daughter.  Alas (for my poor male brethren out there) there was no such algorithm. Can you believe that?

And that really brought me to the deeper question – WHY AM I COMPETING FOR THE LOVE OF MY CHILD?????? That little mite has so much love to give everyone that there is enough to go around and some……

Even though I do my best to ignore the obvious, realization dawns and I finally figure out that in a way, I am a still bitter about my divorce and maybe the pangs of guilt still exist that I could not make it work.  I have always been good at anything I did, (I did mention I am very modest) and the crumbling of the marriage was the first real sign of failure in my life and maybe a big bruise to my large but fragile ego.  I somehow needed to prove to myself that I was the better parent and that my exs decision to end the marriage (there’s goes one more secret down the drain) was not the best decision for any one of us….So this entire aversion to “the concept” appears really to be an effort on my part to consciously massage my ego.  At this point, the handful of men still reading this are like “dude you just lost your right to be invited to a boys night out and the next thing you’ll tell us that Titanic is your favourite movie”….hmmmm…. never really thought of that but no….it’s just to sugary for me….. More such realizations and I could be an enlightened one very soon….

Also, it never occurred to me to check with my sisters what their views were and how was their relationship with our father.  I know, there are some things that a daughter will always confide in her mother – her first crush, her first kiss or even her boyfriend but I just wish that would be me.  In my case, it would be even more unlikely since I have been convinced since her birth that I need to buy a shotgun the day my daughter hits her teens.  I was once a young man and I know :).

So this really has nothing to do with me competing with my ex but just the love I feel for my child. Is that any less? Then why is it always beaten down on me that “she’s the mother, you have to understand”.  To top it all off, during one of my random net surfing episodes I read an article (another proven study, mind you) that confirms that boys lose more in the absence of a father figure and not girls….WOO HOO… way to go on building the confidence, buddy!!!!! Somehow such ‘empirical pieces of evidence’ have a way of finding their way to me.  Reminds me of one of the episodes of THE Simpons – where Homer ends up seeing donuts everywhere…while I do love the show, I think my parenting skills are by far better than that of Homer’s…..

So where does that really leave me now…..All I can say is that I have a great relationship with my daughter but where the relationship would be 10 years down the line is potentially all up to me and the effort I make…. Hopefully at that point in time my insecurity would have gone (to some extent) and I would grab the love she doles out with both my hands. Maybe I will even have the courage to show her this piece and watch her expression as she reads it…. What she will say I don’t know but I know what I want her to say…..

Till then I just need to reconcile to the fact that ‘the concept’ will most likely always exist and there’s not really much that one can do to fight it……kids have so much to give and we waste the time trying to fit them into our moulds and make them our pretty little trophies to brag about….

So LADIES and GENTLEMEN (hopefully atleast one man has survived through this long, winding note), welcome to the ramblings of a confused man and many more to come.

In the words of the great poets of the modern era – JOURNEY – Don’t stop believing, hold onto that feeling, streetlight people……