Genius resides in thy child, I needn’t know!!

During my recent trip to India, I met a few new parents. They are all my husband’s friends from his university days. There also were relatives who’ve had children in the past couple of years. I hadn’t experienced spending time with new parents before that considering that I am the oldest kid in my family and most of my friends are still unmarried or got married at the same time as me. Had I known what I would go through, I might’ve thought twice before agreeing to visit husband’s friends with him or even go to his relatives’ places.

Before I go on to express my anguish, I must state that all parents I met were first-time parents. Perhaps they would be different the second time around. The general consensus of all of them this time though was that their own child was certainly one of the cleverest things to have existed. I understand that it is natural for a parent to feel that way about their child especially the first child but, really, I don’t want to know! It doesn’t really seem a big deal to me if a two year old can mumble a few unintelligible words. “Oh he can count up to three too. Isn’t he great? Pappu, count 1, 2, 3. Aww good boy. Come here. Mama wants to kiss Pappu. Pappu makes Mama proud!” Umm Great, but I remember my sister singing nursery rhymes in clear comprehensible English when she was two and a couple months. “Look, Pappu just broke the television screen. Isn’t he clever? How could he analyze that throwing a heavy object into the screen would break it? Aww good boy. Come here. Mama wants to kiss Pappu. Pappu makes Mama proud!”

Argh! Height of frustration! But I sat through it all, sat with a smile fixated on my face and awwing and oohing as much as I could. There are no mothers or fathers in the world who think that their child is less than anyone else in the world but some just take it a step further. The over-obsessed-with-their-child kinds constantly announce their child’s achievements to any audience who they can get the attention of. Most of the mentioned achievements are just a part of normal growing up for a child. The audience, however, is forced to listen out of courtesy. Add in the mix of gloating grandparents to the set of over enthused parents too. You have a perfect recipe of getting a splitting headache from too much smiling, awwing and oohing.

Why can’t these parents just keep their affection within their household walls and not try to make it public knowledge? Discuss with each other, call up the kids’ grandparents and feel happy together, vent it out in a journal entry, or better yet, start a blog! I suggested that to one of the ladies in India who had nothing else but her Pappu to talk about. In reply, she said shyly, “Oh no no, I don’t have anything to write about him.” Err?!? I really doubt that you don’t have anything to write considering that you do have plenty to talk about him. Is it by any chance that you wouldn’t get the instant gratification that you get out of torturing people live?

Ugh. No offence to anyone who blogs about their children but I wouldn’t personally read them. I would pick and choose the posts that relate to a more generic issue rather than reading about when their child threw up the first time. Actually, there are some fabulous blogs who use examples from their lives with their children to discuss issues that might be of some broader relevance to the readers. I appreciate that, but I’d so easily skip anything that has to do with a kid making a cute face and putting a lipstick on for the first time unless the writing is spectacular and I knew the parent very well personally.

In short, my request to all you parents who are madly in love with your children that you can’t find enough words to describe their new antics and the new things that they teach you, please get yourself either a diary and a pen or a blog. Write about it. Reflect on those thoughts. Feel good about them. Please don’t impose them on innocent, unsuspecting friends/strangers who really don’t care to know about the first time your little one used the potty without any assistance no matter how cute it really was. It also doesn’t matter to the rest of us if your kid accomplished potty training much before than an average kid does. We don’t want to know child statistics and how your kid fits in the top slot in almost every category. We don’t really care. Talk to their grandparents. They might be interested. Better yet, blog away!! :)

This post was inspired by Andrea Frazer’s highly comical write up:
Your kid is brilliant, now shut up! (a must read)