Parenting – I am new to this

I genuinely thought parenting would be easy. What is the big deal?, I had thought before little V started living together with me. He is a nice boy. He doesn’t ask for lot of things and is is happy with a very small things we buy for him. . I couldn’t have been more wrong. Parenting wasn’t easy at all. I cannot blame Little V on this.

Ever since he finished Pre-KG, in his third year, the country and whole world shut down because of the pandemic. He was brought up in a very sheltered environment where the adults were always mindful of what they do, talk before the kid. So naturally when he was around me, he was in his best behaviour and I didn’t have a reason to think he would change.

But when we started to live together in the same space, I could see a drastic change in his behaviour. He was not like before. The way he sat to watch the TV changed. He was whistling songs more often. The way he walked was different than before. He had a peculiar choice of words, which shocked his mother. The kid who was very attentive to even the smallest sound of his mother, started answering without looking up his book.

Naturally it pissed me off. I didn’t want to bring it to my wife. I tried to advising him, instructing him but there was no change. One day as he we three went on a walk in the park, I slowly took up this subject to my wife. She was parenting him fore more time than I and I was looking for guidance. The fact is she too was aware of it. And what came next, was the shocker.

Little V was modelling his behaviour on Big B because he loves his dad. It meant that I was doing things I didn’t like to see in my son. “It is not as bad as you think” my wife said. But it made me think of the times, I sat in the couch. The walk I walked around the house. The way I was driving my bike with him sitting in front, whistling and humming songs which came to my mind. Most importantly, I had been answering my wife without taking my eyes off the mobile or laptop when she was speaking to me.

“I am sorry” was my response. We were newly married, so my wife, naturally, started comforting me. “Did you notice he is reading rather than playing games in mobile? He is not just picking the bad habits from you,” she said.

I slowly realised what it means to be a parent. It was not just providing. It was not just buying him the things he liked. To be mindful of my own actions, words and gestures is going to shape a little one the way he approached the world. That day I decided to change and it was not easy. But I am up for it.