give them your love but not your thoughts

give them your love but not your thoughts

Last month when I spoke to her parents, we spoke of her as the "little one".
-"How's the little one?" I asked
-"oh as playful as ever. We still do not know when she will get serious about her studies or anything" replied her mother.
- "It is alright" I said indulgently, for this is a child I had known from birth and loved like my own. I said, "let her take her time to grow up. There is always the time to take life seriously."
And you can imagine the scene among her family and friends when the "child" decided to get married at 19 to someone who seemed to be entirely different from everything her family believed in.
Her parents cannot figure out where they went "wrong". From their birth the children have been handled as projects and every detail worked out meticulously, the best environment provided in every way and nurtured with sensitivity and care. The parents practised every value they wanted imparted to the kids. Nothing was wanting, in love or materially. And yet, the child-woman chose to do something like this.They cannot explain it. they do not know how to set the wrong right because they do not know what went wrong from their side. Enquiries revealed that there was nothing striking or spectacular about the boy - he is just an "ordinary, mediocre 28 year old from an ordinary, mediocre family". And yet he could motivate her to severe ties with everything and everyone she had known and loved in these past 19 years? Or was the ordinariness itself the motivation - having felt suffocated among "super-achievers" that was the norm in the parental house?
The parents simply cannot stop looking for the "why" of it and feeling somehow that they have failed.
I feel it is time the parents stopped trying to find the possible causes for her behaviour and blaming themselves. Every child is an individual and not just a product of upbringing. Give them love and a good environment to grow in - beyond that what they make of their life is their own choice. There is no point trying to control it nor seing their life as extension of your own.Every parent knows how tough it is to develop such a detachment towards their child particularly when they go through pain. But I guess life is something each one has to live on their own and learn and cannot be done through a manual of instructions developed by someone else!