The child of a busy parent

My child is angry on most occasions and either ends up fighting or crying. When he meets his friends or cousins, on most occasions, we are the ones who want to leave first. So his constant argument is that others also have school in the morning and why we have to leave first. I will not go till all of them go. Any suggestions on how to handle this.. Many times others want to eat out and we prefer to come and eat at home so others are together for a longer time and he feels left out. Also, we live in a place where he has no building friends at all.

A mother wrote this. And thank god she wrote the last line. Because that is what is required to understand the child’s behaviour.

As I spoke to the mother, she mentioned that they live in row houses. And the houses don’t have kids of his age. And as working parents, it's difficult to get him company during the weekdays.

She also mentioned that when he was younger we would try and play games regularly with him. But now he is 10 and doesn't enjoy playing board games with us. And prefers to play with kids his age to play outdoors.

As I was listening to her, I felt like talking to a mother who loves her son very much and wants to do the right thing for him.

I was now genuinely concerned and interested to know what the child does during weekdays when he has no friends.

He plays Pokemon at home in most of his free time, she said.

And so I asked her: isn’t this a recipe for disaster in the making? 3 more years of this and we have a teenager with device addiction who does not want to talk to his parents. Parents who love him but don’t have time for him during weekdays. But more importantly live in a place where their child does not have a company of friends.

So I said to the mother: why don’t you shift houses? If I was you, that’s what I would do.

She said: it wasn’t financially possible for them to do that.

She added: we try to come home so that we can take him to his friend's house which is outside our society but by that time it’s dinner time and no one wants to play. We end up being busy for his future.. so that we can support the family.

There it was, the agony of a loving parent who is working hard for her son.

And I wrote to her: this might sound harsh but maybe busy parents shouldn’t have kids.

Because it seems like a lose-lose proposition. A child without the company of parents/peers and parents who feel their career is being compromised and start living with guilt.

The problem occurs when the following three things coincide:

• Both parents are busy
• Living in a nuclear family
• The absence of a strong play group for the child

This leaves the parents in the office and the child on the mobile.

So after talking to 100s of busy parents living as a nuclear family, I think a win-win view on children is: don't have them. Continue to be busy. Progress in your career. Travel. Have wine. Truly enjoy. If you want to be busy, why complicate life?

The mother at the other end paused. And then wrote that she would talk to her husband about how they can find company for their child.

I don’t know what has happened but I hope the boy finds a child to play with.

The child needs literally one more kid to play with. After all that is the simple thing he has been fighting with his parents to stay back in his cousin's house for.

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