A friend of mine went to his hometown after many years.
He's a big shot in the corporate world.
He had gone there to take care of an elder one.
It also ended up being the end of the year, his office work had shut down.
No kid, no wife.
No demand on time.
Nobody to tell him what to do today. There was no 'to-do' list.
And he mentioned that he had the best 10 days of his life.
In his words, he moved from a life of 'infinite demand on his time' to a 'supply of hours' which he could use any way he wanted to during the day.
I agree with him. I also think that the fundamental thing that he felt and he loved was the feeling of being in control of his life.
If you see, this is not about actually being in control of life. He had, after all, gone because of an unexpected travel because of an elder in the family falling sick. This is about ‘feeling in control'.
This is a feeling which often goes missing as urban lives get busier and busier. From time spent in the daily travel, to office work which often spills into home, to having committed to go to the gym twice a week, to taking kid to school, to going out for coffee with your partner, to meeting friends; all of these are demands on one’s time. Often leading to a schedule which is packed with one after the other.
And even though we decide and design every minute of our calendar life ourselves one can still have the feeling of just moving through life, doing the motions. We generally tend to dismiss it by using the word ‘busy’. When my friend went back and shared his experience with friends, that is what happened. Most folks said: 'Arey you will get bored after 15-20 days' or ‘Biwi bacchon ke bina to jahunum bhi jannat lagti hai' (without wife and kids even hell feels like heaven). All of us need something to do. It only felt nice because it was change.
But I think it is deeper than that.
Both for us and our children.
Because this is a feeling that may be is also going missing in our children’s lives.
If you go back to your childhood, do you feel that maybe you felt more stability than your child is feeling? There was less travel, less number of birthday parties to go to, less number of friends to cater to, less things to play with.
More predictability in daily routine - both for our routines and our parents. My mom was always home and my dad came home every day at 6 pm. That was just the way it was. I would be playing cricket on our verandah and, on hearing the sound of Dad’s scooter around 6 pm, leave the bat-ball to run a bit behind the scooter as he stopped. Take his bag, put it in the living room, and drag him out to play for a few minutes. We used to travel to a faraway location once in 4 years on LTC that Dad’s bank paid for. Life was more predictable.
In today’s world, most parents' life is busy between work and home. And I can think of only two possible ways to bring more predictability:
Why is this important for a child?
Because our brain develops in 3 parts.
Our brain develops in 3 parts:
The lizard brain is the first one to develop. And it is only when a child feels safe i.e the lizard brain is developing and functionally optimally - the child is getting enough sleep, the heart rate is fine, the temperature of the body is fine - it is only when all of this is happening well can the mammal brain and primate brain develop properly.
It is only when the child feels ‘a infinite supply of time’ rather than an ‘infinite demand on his time’ can a child really feel in control of his life. This is a feeling that has become harder to have in the modern world. This is a big reason children are maturing early, feeling bored earlier in life. This is a feeling that a parent living in the city has to fight hard to not give. It is not easy but I feel deeply that this is required for our young children more than anything else in this world: to not feel rushed, to feel in control of their lives.
If this is helpful, you can use WhatsApp to share it with other family members and friends.
