The girl child on the railway platform…

I had an interesting observation few days back. It happened when I had been waiting for the local train.

On the half-crowded platform there were some beggars sitting next to the place where I was waiting for the train. There were two ladies, three gents and one girl child. One of the two ladies said something to the child. The next moment the child started begging by going to each passenger waiting on the platform. Some girls were standing next to me. They refused to give her money. After begging them for a minute or so the child disappeared from there.

After ten minutes the child came running from the other end of the platform with her hand full of coins. By the time she reached her parents they had been drinking something. The child showed the money to them and asked them for the drink that they had been drinking. The woman tried to take the coins from the child’s hand but the child refused to give her unless she was given the drink. Finally, the woman didn’t give the drink.

Meanwhile there was an announcement of the train arrival. As the train arrived, the child started moving away from her parents saying that she would be leaving them still with the coins in her hand. One of the two ladies had to pull her back towards the train as the child kept on rejecting being pulled back. Finally, the woman was successful in pulling her back.

Now, if we correlate this incidence to the regular happenings in well settled families, there comes out some interesting facts.

In regular families, parents usually try to tell their kids if the kids are not maintaining discipline that they would be leaving them behind. Parents try to make kids feel insecure and hence try to align them. Kids follow the parents having no way. In the above incidence the kid’s confidence on her independent living touched me. And that too it was a girl child. In regular families once kids grow up and still parents try to fear the grown ups, parents often fail to make them insecure once the kids attain the confidence required for independent living. Until then its parents’ say in most of the cases of the regular families.

Well, it’s not about making kids independent at early ages and let them leave. All I say is to keep the child’s independent living going on and at the same keeping them all along with the love and affection.

Parenting is a tough job. Cynical thinking and building confidence in kids being the major challenges, some parents come out successfully. Hats off to them.