I do not like the Pears soap advt in which a little girl pushes away everybody(grandparents,father),eyes closed, till she reaches her mother. She wants to see only her Pears-soap-washed mother ‘kyonki aap mere liye lucky ho.’ So rude, and what a loving hug she gets for it!

Then there’s the Cadbury advt, in which a little girl licks up all the pieces so that she needn’t share them with anybody. And there are all those doting looks showered upon her.

So, all those of us who spent time teaching our children to respect elders, share whatever they had, who have lived with these values all our lives…..what are we? Misfits in today’s world? Plain idiots?

Children who refuse to imbibe anything but packed juices, who cannot be cajoled into eating anything but bowlfuls of noodles, children whose mothers thank Boost and Bournvita and Horlicks for keeping their children healthy—are we supposed to be proud of such bratty children and their silly mothers?

I have no patience with mothers who make a habit of asking their young children what they would like to eat. It’s such a sad way of passing on ill-health and blame onto a child not competent enough to understand what is to be eaten and what isn’t. Do ask, by all means, on the child’s birthday or when she is celebrating some small victory. Maybe on Sundays too. But for every meal???

Don’t children have a right to be taught to eat well, behave well and grow up into decent adults capable of co-existing with their families and the society at large?

How I wish I could let you remain a kid! I wish I could stop worries from touching you….How lost you look sometimes, how desolate! I can see your effort, your wobbly smile, unshed tears- and there’s a pain, a helplessness in me, and a towering rage against whoever or whatever is making my lovely warm baby so vulnerable and sad.

Wasn’t it just a while ago that you were so carefree, playing outside on warm summer nights with all your friends? I can still smell that warm happiness as you skipped inside at last, so hungry you didn’t even want to wash up! When did my warbling, skinny, happy child grow up? Why do kids grow up? When man finally becomes immortal, will childhood last a few hundred years? And will the mothers then, too, lament their child’s growing up?

There are so many wonderful things written about the joys of motherhood. All true. But nothing prepares you for the vice around your heart--that squeezes you a hundred times, as your kid comes home with skinned knees, as you spot the loneliness in her eyes as a friend turns out to be unreliable, the hurt bent of her shoulders at a teacher’s unfair criticism, the worry creases on her forehead as she prepares for an exam, the sad surprise at the politics of real life…..

I remember every single person who hurt you. And I know I’ll never forget. I wonder at your sweetness, as you interact with some of them. So, you don’t consider them your enemies? Hmm… I am beginning to understand my mother’s suspicious or downright angry looks at some from my circle.

A daughter grows up faster and differently, until she becomes a mother. That’s when her life changes hugely—and she never recovers.