Myths & Matters - 1.0 "Our children belongs to us"

Prelude:

In this series titled as "Myths & Matters" I am presenting few "Moments of Truth" that unfolds in our life as a wisdom after we suffer due to false understanding of our relationship with our loved ones or life events. When this wisdom dawns on us we have nearly finished our life and hardly left with few years to apply these wisdom to achieve peace of mind. It is prudent to learn from other's mistake as we may not have time to commit all of them by ourselves as life span is insufficient to do that. In this series I briefly cover one topic at a time about the false understanding as "The Myth" and offer few suggestions under the heading "What Matters". Please note the serial number that appears on each topic to keep track of the serial. Although there is no sequence for reading, you will be benefitted if you read these topics in sequence for best results. I shall post one topic every Sunday to keep continuity and sustain your patronage. If you find these topics useful, kindly join this blog as follower to get automatic update through your mail when I publish any new post. I would appreciate your comments at the end of this blog which will act as a feedback for me to improve my blog in the future. Your feedback is the manure for me to continue this effort. Wish you Happy reading & peaceful life ahead.

The moment of Truth:

Human beings are believed to be in existence in this planet for millions of years and in the name of civilization we have been passing on our believes to the next generation. I presume that thousands of years ago there was no religion and all human beings lived in harmony when they were living closer to the nature exactly conforming to the laws of nature. In fact animals seem to be in a state of harmony as compared to human as it has no freedom to live in any other way. But human beings can make choices, which animals cannot. In reality are we really exercising this freedom? Not really as we are governed by the “paradigms” which are formed by the “Stories” we heard and conditioned ourselves that way. We have a storehouse of “Myths” in our bosom that runs our life.

Many of this belief are based on what we heard from our parents, teachers, religious gurus, listening to epics and social interactions during our formative years. Our personality is nothing but expression of these believes which manifests as our behaviours thus personality. Our peace and tranquility is decided to a large extent due to these believes which we can call as “Paradigms”. In each country we find different “old stories” held for ages, which forms the foundation of their culture. We call them as “Myths”. Referring to the dictionary we find the meaning of ‘Myth’ as “a traditional story, esp. one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events”

As the name implies ‘Myths’ have no real existence but make a lots of difference in our life in terms of our actions and hence the results. In this new series I would like to deal with these ‘Myths’ with a hope that it will make a difference in our life in terms of peace of mind. I titled this series as “Myths & Matters” as Myths really don’t matter if we look at them in the right perspectives. In this series I wish to deal with our traditional believes and challenge them with a different perspective. Seeing things with a different lens in it can alter our life dramatically and that is the aim of this series.

The Myth:

“Our Children belongs to us”

Let me start with a very controversial topic of the traditional belief that “Our children belong to us”. One of the ‘Myths’ is the attachment we suffer due to the strong feeling that our children belongs us as they have born to us. When they were small, we as a parent control them and take all the decisions on their behalf such as what food to feed, dress to wear, which school to study and so on. As they grow at some point in time they become independent and start hating our controls. As Rajneesh once said “If your child says no to you, check their date of birth and you will find they are in their Teen’s”. This is a devastating experience for many parents who derived power by controlling their children.

When our children want to leave the parents and go to another country to live or marry someone of their choice or live alone with their wife, as parents we feel devastated thinking that they are ditching us. When we reach old age we want our children to be with us or at our bedside when we die. The bonding is so strong that it never allows us to let go. You may think that all these are “but natural” and wondering why we are discussing it. That is the power of the “Myths”.

When the son gets married a new girl coming from some other family, few mothers only treat her as their daughter; but they expected their daughter to be treated by her mother-in-law that way. The psychology is; the mother of the boy feels that the new girl walked-in snatched her son away from her hands. This is the problem of not willing to let go some one whom we want to control forever. We chose to perform marriage to our son thinking that he needs an emotional companion as we will disappear from the planet soon and he needs some one to take care of him. If that is the motive he can hire a servant to do his daily chores! We have conflicting requirements and suffer due to the ‘Myth’, which is the main topic of this chapter. The old adage says, “Children never grow in the eyes of their parents” Looking back to our life history with our own parents we did the same what our children does with us.

What Matters?

Now let us see what really ‘Matters’ seeing through another lens. In creation one of the strongest instinct is ‘protecting the off-springs’ as we see all animals protect their young ones till they are on their own. Strangely all species take care of themselves soon after coming out of their mother’s womb – a fish swims, a calf walks, a snake finds its prey soon after they are born and so on. Only human beings cannot take care of themselves and needs their mother to ensure that we are alive till such a time we can take care of ourselves. The emotions and bonding is so strong and natural but the problem lies in letting go as the children grow.

The child in its mothers womb is fed through the umbilical chord and kept alive till it comes out to this world. But the first thing the doctor does is cutting the umbilical chord soon after the child is out into the world if not we would die. This symbolically shows that the connection with the child needs to be severed for its survival and growth. Although the mother disconnected the umbilical chord but she is still connected with the “emotional chord”. Learning form the other species that forcibly detaches themselves from their offsprings as they progressively become independent, we stifle the natural growth of our children in the name of love and attachment.

In variably we want to make all choices for our children including what educational stream to choose. Often we want them to do what we missed in our life. Is it not ridiculous to relive our life through our children? Khalil Kibran one of the greatest philosopher gave a wonderful wisdom, which transformed my relationship with my children and my peace of mind. I recommend the same to you to consider. Here is the essence of Khalil Kibran’s poem about children:

Kibran says that your children are like the ‘Dart’ and the parents are like the bow. The archer is the divine essence of this universe, which has an agenda to keep the human race to prevail and hence driving procreation.

He says, “your children are the result of the cosmic intelligence’s plan to persist the human species which has chosen you as the medium to create them and you are a fool to think that they belong to you since they came through you” He continues “They are like a dart and you are a bow. Just because the bow is used as the medium to launch the dart, it has no control once the dart leaves the bow as the archer has a target for the bow. You are trying to control your children is like the bow trying to direct the dart once it left!”

What prophet Kibran says may sound philosophical but very profound wisdom for understanding the reality of our connection with our children. This gives us clarity and let go our children to blossom like a bird with five senses pushes its little ones to explore the vast sky. Tendulkar has born to master cricket and Latha Mangheskar born to master music. Their parents could never inverse their role because that is what the “Archer” decided them to do.

Let go of your children to find who they are & why they are here in this universe and live with peace of mind.

Other Myths & Matters follws.

Love

NC