Parenting is a slow dance. Not with your spouse as much as it is with your child, no matter the age or stage. It’s like doing the tango, or maybe even the garba. You take 3 steps forward and then take 2 steps back and as much as it feels like you are making progress, and you may be too, it feels like a very painful physiotherapy session.
Yes, Ive done them all, and so the glib take on the dance.
The more I become an adult mom to adult kids, the more I realize, this experience of parenting is so different and there is simply nothing that I can use from my parents. Not just coz we live in a different country with its sets of challenges, freedom and privileges, we also belong to a very different world. A world that gives very little room for a parent to be able to nurture their kid without having a pushback from sources outside of the family unit. Diverse thoughts and views are good, they make for a great discussion and dinner table conversation, but only when we have all mastered the art of communication. To be able to come from a place of learning, and a place of curiosity, to be able to respect and listen the others’ and all that comes when there is no extra baggage from our ancestors.
The current 50 years olds carry the largest load, as we see vividly how we were raised, we see our growth, we see us working our way thru the foggy uncertanities and yet somehow making it thru the other side barely breathing, and we are slammed again by the next gen, a generation that thinks they know it all.
..And so the slow dance will continue. My only hope is that ultimately our collective experiences will help our memories to hold onto the steps that we took forward than the ones that set us back.
