I would like to share some signficant learnings I had in the initial days
when I was bringing up my son Karthik.
The first few days were like "What the hell. Nothing seems to work. The
only predictable thing about my son was his unpredictability. I was given
'Friend'ly and'Relative'ly advice on how they had managed to bring an
order and schedule into their kid's life as early as when they were 3
months old. The pressure to be a supermom who was not at the mercy of her
son was tremendous. It was then that I realised that I should forget all I
learned about schedules, discipline etc. and flow along rather than fight
this unpredictability. I found that I was able to do a lot of things I had
no time for. The nightly waking also helped me experience something which
until then was only an intellectual thought to me. This was a real
unexpected blessing because that learning has helped me find an equilbrium
in life.
It happened like this.
There was a construction site next to our house. As is generally the
norm there are infants in make shift cradles. The mothers work at the
construction site during the day. I used to nurse my son at night and
keep awake The mothers at the construction site also used to do the
same. They looked after their kids with as much or even more affection
than me and definitely with infinitely more patience. The difference
was that I had the luxury of not having to earn my living by working in
the daytime. That is when the truth about tha man with worn out shoes
looking at a man with no feet really got etched in my heart. Today I
believe I am more balanced in life and better equipped to deal with oth
success and non-success(Is there any experience which can be termed as
pure failure?)
Even today I changed my schedule because my son (now a 7 year old with a
mind of his own and definite views on independence, freedom, his birth
rights. etc., utter importance of watching TV and playing video games)
had a painful boil and was confined to the house. But that is what gave
me the time to browse the responses to my experience on swimming and
gave me the time to articulate the above experience.
Flow with life and life flows more smoothly.
Gayatri Krishnamurthy
Transitions
25, P&T Colony,
R.T.Nagar, Bangalore,
India-560032
email : gayatrik@giasbg01.vsnl.net.in
--Gayatri Krishnamurthy <gayatrik@giasbg01.vsnl.net.in>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>