Blending Naughtiness with Responsibilities

Let me share three stories with you. The first one is what I have read in one of the moral story books, the second one is shared by my teacher, and the third one is my own experience.

Story 1:

It so happened that a child missed his school one day because the train was late and he and his parents could not be at home on time from the place they had gone to spend the weekends. For the next day, he was supposed to submit a leave application in school, for which he told his father to write one. His father wrote that the son was unable to attend school yesterday because of a fever. The son immediately said, “Papa, is not it you who taught me to speak the truth?”His father immediately modified the application by stating the correct reason.

Story 2:

My teacher, being frustrated by her son, once told her son “You trouble me so much. You are nothing less than a demon”. Her son listened to it calmly and then came to her and said “Do I look like a demon to you?” Believe me, from that moment my teacher never used the word ‘demon’ for people.

Story 3:

When I was in class 6th, my mother felt that it was the time when she should have a little more focus on me. I used to live with my granny, and my mother used to live at a distance of 60km, at her college where she was a lecturer. I heard this discussion between my mother and father. I wanted to speak something but my mother did not let me speak. In the end, my father allowed me to speak. I spoke “Mamma, why don’t you do up and down from home to college for some days. If you feel all right we can continue. If not, we will find some other way”. Then my father said, “So what if she is just a child, she has given us the best solution”. My mother still continues doing up and down from home to college. What is more important than this are the words of my father “So what if she is just a child, she has given us the best solution”. They still have a profound impact on me.

What is common in these three stories, when I ponder, the answer I get is how the sensitivity and innocence of children can be great teachers to parents. Sometimes parents, knowingly or unknowingly, do something that they are not supposed to do. I believe that it should be normalized. Being a parent does not come with a license to always be correct. For me, this is what indicates the jovial naughtiness of a parent. What can be the learning point is how the innocence and sensitivity of a child molded with the clay having an idea of being responsible can actually shape the naughtiness of parents into a beautiful, balanced pot with a pure, magical society.

The idea that a child too can correct parents has still got a long way to be accepted. Blending naughty parents with responsible children can be a bridge to ease the process.

You must have heard children saying “ek baar kya chai achi ban gayi mujhse, ab gharwale mujhise hi hamesha chai banwate hain!” See, parents being naughty with the tantrum to drink tea made by the child only, has a lot to do not only with learning values but also enjoying the process.

Maybe we are so accustomed to the idea of responsible parents and naughty children that we fail to realize the charm of vice––versa. As parents grow old, it is common that a child becomes responsible and takes care. Why not imbibe that sense of responsibility from a very young age? Blending opposite things has always given us extreme results, I believe this uncustomary blend of naughty parents and responsible children will bestow us with a lot of positive changes in society. Maybe a small kid scolding his mother for not finishing her tiffin at work would be a scene more common than what it is today to be perceived by all of us.?

(PS: Thanks a lot dear IEEE Returning Mothers Conference 2024 Ramalatha Marimuthu Dr. Gunjan Varshney for organizing events like Naughty Mothers, Responsible Children. Your insights will never fail to have an everlasting impact on others.)