Every morning is a race against time. When my whole household is running to get my daughter school in time (and this is just a Montessori class), I get light headed thinking how will we ensure she boards the school bus which arrives half hour earlier!!!
We have a forty minute window to get the kid awake, finish her milk, bathe, get ready & have whatever little she can for breakfast, & run to get in the car, to reach school in time. All the while, seeking out a clock in whichever part of the house we are in, and praying that it ticks slower. The words that get repeated like a prayer, every day, are ‘we’re getting late’, ‘we have to rush’, ‘there is no time’….and the likes.
Once we are ready, we have to rush to the car & put on the seat belt & then drive off, hoping that the gods will hold the time still & we’ll reach school in time, and don’t have to cut a sorry figure in the school as a late comer.
In all this wild dash, one day, I forced myself to just stop & observe my daughter, & I was taken aback at what I saw.
Like a child her age, she was blissfully ignorant of the pressure we felt all around us. I am sure if she were older, she would have said ‘What’s all this fuss about mom?’.
When she wakes up, she would laze in the bed pretending she’s asleep while actually wanting to be kissed, then savour her milk, then play with the water in the bath tub because to a three & a half year old kid its funny to throw bubbles at her mom & make her wet, and all the while chatting about the silly things her little brother does…. Then while getting ready, she would tell me tales about her school friends, how one kid is very naughty, or fights with others, or whatever captures her little world. Then she would climb down the stairs hopping on each one, reach the car & insist on using the keys to unlock the door, acting all grown up…… On the way, she would observe if it’s a sunny day, or a cloudy one, how the flag atop a building is dancing in the wind, what she will tell her teachers when she reaches school & what not…..
Show me one adult, who savours every minute & everything this life offers. Its only kids who are so engrossed in their life & so happy in what they have.
I now believe its criminal to rush a child & deprive them of these pleasures that only they can enjoy. Because, it’s not theirs, but our inability to manage time, that we feel the need to rush them. Too soon they will be grown up & be consumed with work, gadgets, gossip & all materialistic things that we are addicted to. Let us let them be, for however long we can, and not rush them into becoming us.
mommamantra 