Most of us love to reminisce about our past and talk about it. Especially when we become parents. And then we get carried away and give in to some innate unstoppable compulsion, which impels us to keep providing examples to prove to our children that when we were younger, things were better.
It could be anything: the crime situation, the discipline in schools, the traffic build-up during office hours, the quality of the fruit, roads, airline service or drinking water, everything and everyone, we tell them, was just better.
Becoming a parent is not easy because one has to continue trying and retrying till one masters the parenting act. It is a humbling exercise as well because with every obstacle, one has to bounce back onto the learning curve, and continue with the task of being good parents, and exemplary role models.
But then this is what most of us dread, the ultimate nightmare of somehow failing to live up to our child’s expectations and losing the halo that they place around our heads. One does not crave being put on a pedestal as parents, one realizes that, but one does not need to have one’s feet of clay exposed either!
And so we ponder and look back at our own childhood. We delete all the negatives and, through rose-filtered glasses, paint a glossy picture for our kids. We tell them that, when we were children, things were so much better. And then we get more imaginative. We tell them that things were not only better; they were simpler, healthier, purer, friendlier, funnier, and we proceed to encapsulate our entire childhood as being some sort of an utopian ideal that we can never hope to recreate. Ever!
There is not much truth to the above sentiment; we do recognize that in our saner moments. But we simply continue the tradition and dole out to our children what our parents doled out to us. It is called the circle of life.
However, sometimes, we are forced to face facts. The other day, our daughter was on a quizzing spree and wanted to know if there was email when I was little. I said no, but we used to write in long-hand, beautiful letters penned in ink.
“You mean no internet too? How did you research your projects?” she asked.
“Well, we had the encyclopaedia. An entire collection of it”, I said
“But you had the television, right?” she went on.
“Nope, TV came to our town when I was in high school”, I said.
“What?” she was aghast.
“Yes, and it had only one channel which was run by the government”, I reminisced.
“Are you saying you could not watch movies at home?” she wanted to know.
“Of course not. Films were screened in the clubs where the spools made a hissing sound intermittently”, I gushed.
“Crazy!” our daughter exclaimed.
“We loved those movie nights by the poolside”, I assured her.
“No computers, no cell phones, no laptops, iPad or iPod too? And you say you had a great upbringing?” she was shocked.
The image of my idyllic childhood was on shaky ground suddenly.
“Mum, you poor thing, what did you do with your time?” she sympathized.
“But I was busy every moment of the day”, I insisted.
“Doing what?” she asked politely, losing interest in my so-called glorious past.
Must be something, got to be something, will think up something!
By Nickunj Malik
|| features@portugalresident.com
Nickunj Malik’s journalistic career began when she walked into the office of Khaleej Times newspaper in Dubai thirty-one years ago and got the job. Since then, her articles have appeared in various newspapers all over the world. She now resides in Portugal and is married to a banker who loves numbers more than words.
