Of mothers and sons

Today was just one of those weird days. My mind was mostly at another place where a person whom I absolutely adore was getting operated, but I had these bunch of evaluations (12 of them) to conduct in which the time had to be maintained, questions had to be asked, some quick judgement on the performance had to be passed etc. etc. The hardest part was watching my own students make a really sorry presentation of their decently good work. At the end of it I was sitting in my office feeling so dejected when the sms came from her son that she was out of the operation theater and everything seemed to have gone alright. It was a big relief to see that and I immediately felt incredibly guilty to be thinking about anything else.

Back at daycare RRJ was least interested in being picked up for a drop to cricket because through some clever scheme he and 3 others had managed to get the permission from the rather strict principal to play cricket right in front of the daycare. He wanted to finish the game before heading to the other place. The principal teased him, "what have you got in your body, look like a skeleton, haan?" "I have got cricket in my body, maam." The kid shows sparks of brilliance at times. He lights up my darkest of moods effortlessly even if 90 percent of the times he is the primary cause of the dark mood.

Favourite moments of life.....

....... that I have no memory of.

Do our parents choose jobs for us?

Being the daughter of an academic, having both brothers in academics and being married to an academic is reason enough to not be in academics, and yet the fact is, I am. So is it our parents who choose our careers?

It is hard to deny the influence that parents have on the choices we make. Point of interest being careers, a simple dimensional analysis can be tried to narrow down the important parameters in the game. If we feel that our parents are reasonable and balanced people who are quite aware of what are jobs all about, it is going to be harder to discredit their projection of our future. Specially if the emotional bond is strong and the expectations, however subtle they maybe, are absolutely clear. Now, if there are other strong influences such as teachers in the school or an uncle or aunt it can actually create a second opinion forcing the child at least to consider more than one option and start thinking on their own. Finally, the more dominating the parent is and the more submissive the child is, the decisions are going to be largely parent's wish-centric. Putting these ideas as a questionnaire:

1) strong emotional relation with the parent?
2) high regard for the parent and parent's understanding of the reality?
3) clear expectations?
4) indirect statement of expectations?
5) parents are the only strong influences?
6) strong personality of parent?
7) meek personality of child?

Assuming the ability to meet parent's wishes exist, the more number of yeses we get the more likely it is that we follow the career path that our parents want us to. The inferences that one can make is that as a child if you wish to choose your own path spend a lot of time away from home in the formative years. Listen to inspiring people in various fields, read lot of books. On the other hand if you are a parent encourage child to think on their own starting as early as possible. While have high expectations don't make them very specific: be good and sincere is a non-pressurising expectation rather than be an engineer/doctor. I score pretty much 6 yeses and inspite of all my initial resistances without doubt I have let my parent's wish be my wish. Time to work on the next generation.........