My Duty As A Parent
“When we help our kids experience life in its different colors we help broaden their perspective and better equip them to make their own choices about their likes/dislikes, good/bad, etc. Experiences also fuel our and our child’s curiosity to experience even more…”
If you’ve been following my blog then you might recall I wrote in my previous post - being a father is one of my greatest pleasures and my son Zayden is also my best friend with whom I love doing crazy things. While I dream of doing many more things with him, I feel proud of the experiences I have already given him and the memories we have created along the way. I also feel it is crucial as parents we provide and share as many experiences as possible with our children.
This is something that came very naturally to me and I had never really given it much thought until recently a friend asked me what is so important about providing experiences to our children and why do I feel this is a parent’s duty. I wasn’t very articulate while responding in the moment so decided to reflect on it and this post captures my thinking.
For starters unique experiences, whatever they might be, strengthen the bond between two people, but especially with our children. We also create memories that last a lifetime and that enhance our relationship while we are creating them and beyond. I am not here to extol the virtues of the experiences my son and I have shared, but we still remember very lovingly and proudly how Zayden did ziplining in Mexico at 3 when the minimum allowable age was 4…:) and the time when Zayden was 6 and we did Tarzan jumps in Costa Rica without telling his mum.
As I reflected further, what emerged is our social conditioning constraints us with biases and limited perspectives. When we help our kids experience life in its different colors we help broaden their perspective and better equip them to make their own choices about their likes/dislikes, good/bad, etc. Experiences also fuel our and our child’s curiosity to experience even more. Recently we went to the Isha Yoga Center and were a bit skeptical about how Zayden will handle his time in a spiritual ashram. To our utter amazement he enjoyed his time meditating, playing with ashram’s cows which he had never done before, eating vegetarian food completely alien to him by hand on a banana leaf sitting on the floor and curious to know more about Sadhguru’s (spiritual leader and mystic behind the Isha Organization) teachings without any prompting from us.
Experiences push us out of our comfort zone and however clichéd it might sound, this is when growth happens. Experiences encourage interests that might be latent. We have moved countries with Zayden twice. Both times he has resisted vehemently, but within a couple of months of being in the new country he loves it, has made new friends, wants to integrate with the locals and now is very interested in knowing about people from different backgrounds.
Experiences help children learn about responsibility and gratitude. I might sound a bit boastful but when Zayden shares with his friends where all he has traveled to and what all he has done, they are amazed in some cases and many times tell him how lucky he is. Among his many experiences Zayden has spent some time with street children in India and I believe in large part because of this; whenever he hears his friends’ reactions to his experiences, he says he is grateful, understands how fortunate he is and does not take this for granted.
I am a flawed parent like most other parents. I Don’t Know what an ideal parent looks like or how to become one, what I do know is life is too beautiful and exciting to be constrained by a particular worldview (including mine) and the more we can help our kids experience and let them form their own view, we help them become more curious, courageous, grateful and accepting. I Don’t Know about you but I feel that is one hell of a job as a parent we can do and we deserve a high five for that.
