When the child starts growing up

Well life is full of paradox I guess. It all began when one of my cousins posted, that for the first two years of the  child's life we keep begging them to walk and talk. The next sixteen  we just  ask them to sit down and shut up. Just go back to your child's early life if he has already grown up, if not you you can take this as a statutory warning.

I remember how much we parents await that special moment when the child utters the word ' mama' or 'papa'. Even before the child is able to talk we tend to constantly encourage and talk to the child all the time. Then comes the moment when he actually speaks a few words and then graduates to sentences. We all go totally ooh-aah about the cute kiddish language that the children speak. After this initial euphoria we are brought back to earth by the teacher in the school complaining of the child talking too much. The next thing you know we are busy telling the kids to stop talking. Who can forget some of the gaffes that has led to embarrassing moments in front of a whole lot of people because the child decided to exhibit his vocabulary skill?

When it comes to walking who can forget the first baby steps? That event itself called for big celebration and lot of cheering. Remember the time they  mastered the art of running rather than walking and in the bargain knocked off those lovely glass and crystal ware? Remember the sojourns to the super markets, when we are in a tearing rush and hence would rather carry the child and finish things faster, they refuse to be carried and  would rather walk and all you can do is wait patiently for him to walk those few paces?

Then comes the stage when he has mastered the art of walking and running perfectly, but now insists that he be carried!! He will not budge, and if need be he will sit there right on the road and stage a dharna. What with all the glares that the passersby gives, you finally end up carrying the heavy tyke.

The next paradox is when it comes to taking them out. When they are small and if it is a nuclear family then wherever the mother goes the little one tags along. Many a time haven't we all felt the need for that carefree shopping experience where we could blissfully shop without keeping an eye all the time on our little one whose sole purpose would be to bring down the whole super market in the wink of an eye? Oh! how we wish that our child grows up faster. Then comes the time when they are ten or eleven, when we have to beg them to come with us to attend family functions and we are met with a forceful and loud ' no' and 'never'.

Well If  I were to list out more, it will run into reams of pages, don't you think? This is what then makes the art of parenting difficult to master. What do you say?