Are you trying to Create a Superkid too?

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Are you trying to Create a Superkid too?
- Aarti Mehta

The horrendous scene out there of industrious young women in the middle and upper middle classes, obsessed to create super-kids scares me. I am not trying here to be all knowing, but am speaking from not only first hand observation but a first hand experience of being a victim of the same scenario. I too am a mother of nine-year-old twin boys. It is indeed all too easy to fall a prey to this easy way out i.e. in order to fulfill the void housewives generally begin to feel as children start growing up, becoming more independent, quite a few women live their lives vicariously through their children. They will live only for the children. This leads to over-involvement in the children's activities, their studies etc. leading to a subtle masked competition between the mothers themselves, which could be hilarious if it was also not incredibly pathetic.

However most importantly, I feel it affects the children's development and growth in an irreparable way. They lose their problem solving ability, their innate creativeness and the opportunity and the right to make mistakes in order to learn and grow further in a natural way, while their mothers bask in reflected glory of the unnatural light of their children. It is also to be realized that the children will grow up and leave the nest and the void will return.

I feel it would be much more natural to let the children fend for themselves, while we accept their natural performance gracefully, (if it is the mother who is getting high grades in school through the child, does it really make any sense? ) I think we would all be leading fairer lives. The children will be able to shine in their own sun-shine and there can be nothing more beautiful and satisfying than that.

" If you loved me, you'd be there for me
To help me do the things I want to do.
Your whole life wouldn't be only for me,
Nor would your efforts determine who I will be.

You would respect what I do well,
And share the joy I feel when I succeed,
Give me the encouragement I need,
And be my wings, not my protective shell.

I love you mum, and I need you to be mine,
But I need too, to step outside into my own sunshine."

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