This weekend was a day we spent a lot of time together and I ended up scolding her quite a bit. We having more than our fair share of run ins. She listens to me and then forgets and then does the same stupid thing again. Oh god it’s really frustrating. These are times when parenting is really tested. Also to add to this, she does really feel bad at our scolding. Even when she gets a rap from me, she doesn’t really get hurt. After our fight, which I ensure is brief, I tell her – you don’t really get hurt or feel bad, don’t you? And I smile and she breaks into a smile – no I feel. But then she adds, but no so much. Not at all, I think. That’s Jispa.
I have seen this in parenting. Every once in a while the truce is broken and we have our share of run ins. This carries on for some time till both of us grow up and decide that this is enough. It requires both of us to grow up and decide enough is enough. Sometimes the pressure just gets to you. How much can you scold your kid and not feel bad about it. It’s just a crazy pressure on parenting. It is unsustainable. I think that’s the reason you need two to parent. It is not possible for one individual to remain focused all the time. When I end up scolding, Jasmine must be patient and when she is letting loose, I get in.
It’s taken sometime to even understand that when I am telling Jasmine to calm down or vice versa, we aren’t necessarily saying – you are wrong and I am right. It’s us telling each other that we are both parents – just that, and by virtue of being parents we are both wrong and right at the same time. We just need each other to see a side of it that Jispa, in her antics has blurred. Like I was telling Jasmine the other day, when we decided to be parents we didn’t know that this constant adjusting would a part of the job requirements. Dam. To add pressure to the woes, issues can come from all sorts of wrong places. Things that you have not anticipated. In fact you get stuff from things you thought you had covered.
Around a week or so back, Jispa decided to get a haircut. Normally jispa likes long hair, but given her swimming schedule and her general distaste for combing her hair, it’s almost an impossibility to keep pace with for Jasmine. So Jasmine is always after her to cut it. Jispa can fend off only till a point after which she agrees. So technically its Jispa’s call, but really it’s her mommy’call – that’s jispa’s version. Jasmine’s version is the exact opposite. “I never force her” is what Jasmine says. Sometimes we fathers do walk think lines.
So now where to get it cut? The Saloon that Jispa liked is shut, the other one was too kiddish and the third one is the one Jispa hates and is Jasmine’s preferred one. Arggghh. So under imaginary pressure, (Jasmine says there is no such pressure and Jispa believes there is) Jispa agrees to the last option. And the horror story happens. Jispa hair is cut well lower than what she instructed. Oops the bad haircut pain lasted a couple of days. It was quite bad. She was really really sad and she did not want me or anyone to tell her that she actually looked good. I even told her some stories of me as a teen wanting to get my hair cut at different places in the hope that I somehow look good. I probably couldn’t accept the truth that it was me not my hair cut that decided my looks. I remember once even going to the Oberoi hotel – a huge thing in those days, just to get a hair cut. If I am not wrong Jasmine even funded that haircut. Nothing turned good for me. I always thought only if I had enough money to get myself a good haircut, I might have looked good. The things we believed in those days... haircuts make you look good, or facials solve your acne issue. Anything went. I told her that in reality nothing mattered. Today when I can possibly afford any haircut in Mumbai, anywhere, I go to the same silly saloon I went as a kid. Surely it matters more to you today than me today, but the truth is that you like people not because of their hairstyles but because of who they are and how they behave with you.
Well said, but no effect. She was pissed as ever. She did not want to talk about it. At all. Even a mention of ‘jispa you look cute, met with a curt reply’. There are these days when you realize your child has grown up and that’s that. She has her mind and she has decided to use it.
Now after a few weeks, she has learnt how to comb it or she has plainly accepted it. This Sunday, I told her – aha…. ‘I think all you needed was to let your hair cut grow a bit. Sometimes styles can take time to grow on you.’ I was mighty relieved she did not snap back. She was ok. she even let me click a pic. Here you are…
I told her that next time she can have a haircut wherever she wants. In the best place in Mumbai. No expense spared. She was a bit zapped. I told her she could blow a few thousand bucks if she so wished. I think it’s for her to decide and learn if the hair dresser really makes sense. And if it does give her something she is happy about – chuck it. I wanted to go to a saloon that was expensive. In parenting we try to not make the same mistakes. We only search for new ones.
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