Be Selfish With A Purpose..!

Parenting skills shall never be gained through lectures, though the ideology is hereditary, one cannot become a "Masters In Parenting" until and unless one becomes a grandparent. But sadly there is no use in mastering parenting skills when your grandchildren are nudging you to accompany the nearby park.

"A skill will become value-added only if its possessed during necessity else its a burden"

So there is a compulsion circling around young parents to run faster in the parenting marathon.

Dear fellow parents, it's a marathon. We all knew the story of the "Rabbit & Tortoise Race", the slow and steady always wins the race. Take a pause and look back. We might have missed the importance of being selfish during some of the crucial points in our life.

During my school days, my mother use to say not to share my lunch box, but I did the opposite. It is her responsibility to feed her child with all the necessary nutrients. I had no idea about the adverse effect of malnutrition, not that's playing a vital role in school food charts. It's just a fact. Some many a time the habit of sharing overflows with a high notion of generosity but unfortunately we fail to realize that is the time we have to BE SELFISH.

In order to understand better the crucial points where BEING SELFISH should be strictly adapted in parenting and to differentiate this from SELF LOVE once have to bifurcate the below items and analyze by corelating with parenting

1. Decision Making
2. Generation Gap

Conflict 1 - Decision Making & Parenting:

We all knew the definition of decision-making and parenting. On the above parenting is itself a big decision to make. If you watch closer both of these are interconnected in many ways. The decision-making skill and the moral courage to face the consequence, need to be nurtured right from the beginning.

What is the first important decision you took (all by yourself with no intervention) in your life and when?

May be on Education?! On what domain I have to pick and learn or What Master degree I should pursue or Which company I should work for or When I should get married till to whom I should get married to or Even worse when should I become a Father/Mother and many more. Keep digging for many surprising unveiling. I am pretty sure most of these or even all of these decisions are either taken by our parents or we have taken it under their influence. Now the questions to fellow young parents is "Are we allowing our kids to take their own decisions, no matter its big or small" or we keep leading (indirectly intervening) in their birth right of making decisions?

Conflict 2 - Parenting & Generation Gap:

My grandparents have 4 children, my parents have 2 children and I have one child. More or less the difference in these number will be +1 or -1 for any family Worldwide. We could clearly see the next generation numbers are shortening and the generation gap is increasing. Now what is generation gap?

My father use to commute 10 km distance by walk in order to save 5 dollars. I remember spending 5 dollars for public transport in order to save 10 mins of my time. My son is now spending 5 dollars just to kill 10 mins of spare time.

Everything keeps evolving with generation gap, the parenting style haven't seen any major changes and sadly the expectation remains the same. My grandfather expected my father to become a government official, my father expected me to become an engineer and now I am expecting my son to become a doctor. I would say this expectation completely wrong or at least partially wrong. Have you ever wondered what shall be the sources of these expectations? It's us..!

The Solution - Being Selfish:

Expectations are cultivating from the proud sacrifices we do for our child, that the child never asks for!!

Being little selfish or other ways caring for self could be the only solution for these conflicts. By not sacrificing much of our needs, the next generation children cultivate the habit of less expecting. Let them evolve as self-taught gen with more of love rather than conflicts.

Happy (NOT) Parenting!!