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For Parents Who Force Their Children To Study
A story that stays with me as a cautionary tale on missed perspectives.
Sujatha is a girl’s name, a guy chose it as his alias for writing. Why? It was his wife’s first name.
His writing life brought him experiences so varied from his day life as an engineer.
The following extract came my way as it is attributed to him ( but no one is sure) has stood the test of time and chiseled something I feel hard to shake off — is the son liberated or ungrateful? Was perspectives missed by the parents who dangle the future in front of the kids? Or was the son plain disrespectful?
The story starts likes this….
Sujatha got an email from an aging dad.
“My second son likes to read a lot of your books. He buys them when he visits India. If you could write an email to him, explaining our state, he might understand us”.
The elderly parents family context — one son is living in America, and the another one living in Australia. The aging parents live in their native city, Trichy, South India. Dad’s problem is severe depression from loneliness. Mom is suffering from arthritis, and he has Asthma and they can’t settle in colder countries with their sons. Their sons rarely visit them. Even if they do, 5 is the maximum number — 5 days, and hardly 5 hours with them.
Sujatha reached out to the “fan” son on the dad’s consistent urging. This was the “fan” son’s response after a week.
“I lived in Trichy for 22 whole years. But I don’t have any bonding with my native town. For 22 years, I have been with my parents. But I don’t have any sweet memories of them. My father has always planned to make me an engineer — way before I was born.
Every day, he would sit along and teach lessons. After that my mother would. Studying in the school, than studying at home- only memories of my childhood that I carry around. Even during holidays in summer, it is English Grammar and Math Algebra. Even for festivals like Deepavali, there’s nothing for me to celebrate, just studying.
Sometimes, I would lie down and think. If I have anything to remember from my childhood — nothing. It’s just plain studying, studying, studying.
