The Lost Childhood.

Was at an intra-house cultural festival at my kid’s school over the weekend. This was a revelation of sorts for an easy going, laid back, and lazy parent like me. Here I was telling my kids on my way to the fest, fear no more, the champ is with you and rattled laurels I had won as a kid in such festivals, little did I realise that I would get hammered and return home bruised and empty handed. I ended up realizing that competitions were serious stuff and not anymore the fun thing I was used to. Sadly I understood a tad too late that the fun element had long disappeared from these competitions.

Professionalism had taken over the innocent performance of kids, expressions were taught, costumes were outsourced, the props were built, and backdrops were no longer the plain boring whites, the make ups were made up of foundations and super structures. Hey, this is no civil engineering, just make up, wake up to reality and smell the coffee, I told myself. The costumes were Fedexed over night from Mumbai. And then it sunk, gone are the days when I could make do with my mom’s old 'pattu' sari to do a King Herod or one of the three wise men who visited Jesus.

Shocked at the competition levels and the outsourced resources at hand I witnessed, I was telling myself, my kids are missing on so much fun; sorry, this is definitely not a, I-told-you-I-have–seen-it-all story nor is it a story of sour grapes. I realized that parents walk that extra mile or more to fulfil THEIR lost dreams through their kids.

Half sleepy, barely interested, and un-enthusiastic kids were adorned with the best of costumes and jewellery and were literally pushed on stage to perform and they did perform, just like most of us corporate slaves do, expecting an incentive.

Their performances were brilliant, but something was missing. Their eye movements were (dis)oriented towards their anxious parents and appeared as though they were pleading 'am I doing ok, am I doing well, am I meeting your expectations' an expression in which the child was lost in the dreams of his / her parents. I could sense that the child was living some else's dream.

On my way back I told my kids it is not about winning or losing it is all about enjoying your 3 or 4 minutes on stage. I’m not sure I was wrong or right. But once back home I asked them to rate their performance sadly they rated themselves low. But little did they realise that it was their dad who let them down…. on second thoughts, Did I???

I was a know-it-all dad, who had not grown up to accept the realities of the world, a dumb dad who thinks competing is still fun, and a stupid dad who still thinks winning or losing doesn’t matter.

My kids had lost competing with the dads/moms of their co-participants; they lost to kids who actually did not know if they enjoyed what they did because they were doing it for their dads or moms who were busy shooting pictures and videos, looking for brownies (aka Likes) on their next Facebook posting.

As I now tuck them in bed and see them sleep peacefully, content with no worry in the world I’m happy I won when all those parents lost, even though their kids brought THEM laurels.

Sadly even this piece in which the protagonist was the kid with lost childhood ends on a note where the parent wins!!! In short it is the battle of the parents trying to win their dreams these days.

God save us from the tribe of selfish parents, I’m happy I was born in an era when God still made selfless parents!