Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Self Gloating Moms

Meera called . She wanted to wish my daughter the very best for her exams. It surprised me as she never ever calls. She went on to chat about how today’s education system is full of competition and how its marks are really not the real barometer of anyone’s career or life. Since my daughter was in ICSE, she asked if they would be on par in 11th standard with other kids. I said yes they would. I frankly feel a child should be allowed to learn and not made into a race horse that runs with his parent’s aspirations. We talked about how children get stressed and one shouldn’t do this comparisons..so and so forth.  Then she went to ask how much did my daughter score in the exams and after hearing her marks  went to on gleefully announce that her son gets 90% and was hoping for more in the SSC board exams. And was preparing for his engineering and also planning to study abroad. She went on to say that of course not everybody is a star and cut out to be engineers and it is important for a person to do what he/ she likes and some more things that were very contrary to what we were discussing just 5 min back...Oh yessss!!!  then I realised that this was indeed a clever and deceitful tactic of putting other people down and I had walked right into it. I had met many of these Self Gloating Mom’s in my life time. Their objective in life is to put others down...Now I am not a person who believes in calling people and insulting them but I certainly don’t like to take things lying down... I thought I had to return this favour.
I reminded her that I was not a topper in school or college ( she was a year senior to me). Also bought to her notice that I was a 70% average student, from a small town, finished my MBA  and worked out a career across the best of MNC’s and  had work life which was far more challenging and different than most other professions. And that I strongly believed however good your education is, at the end what matters is, what you do with it. I assured her like me, my daughter will eventually find place that belongs to her. My friend mumbled something about being late and then said a quick bye. Just to give a background (My wonderful friend was an engineer by profession and had worked for 3-4 in the initial years of her life and then did nothing of that career post marriage).
Yes , it important to me that my daughter does well economically and all that in life but one has to realize that each child has  different capacities. And for me it is important for her to be happy and a good human being. If I can succeed in that, then I feel that I have done my job as a mother.

5 comments:

  1. Way to go Mom!
    Lesson to learn, why dont u send your article to popular newspaper, they wuld love to publish!

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  2. when i am insecure i will make myself feel better by putting the next person down ... !

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  3. It takes a very secure mom to talk like that (borrowed from Miss Congeniality - it takes a very secured man to walk like that)...more often than not what you do with your education is such a reflection of your upbringing that it is important to know 'most of the life's important lessons are learnt after school' (borrowed from Archie).

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  4. Loved this piece....so close to my heart as I often face this and think this....ahem all this with a 4 and a half year old!!!:( Well thats Dahli for ya...the national gloating capital!!!
    Also loved Vandana's comments:)
    Priyanka

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    Replies
    1. Thanks...ur kid is only 4. Wait till he grows up, you meet this snoooty moms all the time.

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