House full..............house empty..................

HOUSE FULL………..HOUSE EMPTY…………..

A few days back, there was a news clipping in one of the prominent English newspaper about a study done regarding the parent-child relationship.

Quote

‘Kids make people happy….when they’ve left home’

Parents who still live with their children face financial worries, stress and anxiety.

The study conducted by scientists in Germany studied 55000 people over the age of 50 living across Europe and found that people whose children have flown the nest have greater satisfaction and fewer signs of depression.

Unquote.

This piece of news set me thinking about how different we are!

 We Indians have a totally different approach to life as far as our children are concerned. We raise them without letting them know how much it pinches us, even if it does. Most of us don’t even register the pinch. We struggle, we sweat and lose our sleep over giving only the best to our kids. The best of education, the best of extra-curricular life, the best of living conditions, the best of food is what we work tirelessly for, to give them. Our sole purpose of survival and struggle is to ensure a secure, safe and happy environment in their upbringing. Our parents have done the same and we inherit the same culture and create the same world for our children.

In majority of households, the woman gives her career and her life the back seat once she enters the stage of motherhood. Her day revolves around the children, their food, their school, their sports and their home work and projects. Her time is spent on planning their day, their food, their school and their dinnertime specialties. Her morning is spent on dropping them off to school, afternoons to bring them back home and evenings to ferry them from one extra class to another. She creates her home around them. Her world revolves around them and her thought process is completely taken over by her children. Even if she has a career, either a job or a business, the work is adjusted to suit the needs of the children. Often, set-backs in career are taken to fulfill the necessities of home and career advancements are given up for ‘children’s sake’.

The fathers too have their share of involvement. They work harder to keep the momentum, sometimes the vehicle running on one tyre. There is often a sacrifice of a good vacation or a big buy because the fees and books and clothes and sports gear needs to be bought. Often dreams are set aside to fulfill the aspirations of children. Loans are taken, properties are sold, gold is mortgaged to give the child a dream education or a dream wedding.

In all this, we Indian parents not even once feel the pressure of raising our children. The world that is complete with them, the joy of their smiles, the pride of their achievement and the satisfaction of their settled lives gives us the deep sense of having made ourselves good parents and good human beings. Someone has said, “the ultimate happiness of life is when you know your children have become good human beings”. We strive for that in that phase of life when we become parents without the feeling of being burdened to fulfill these responsibilities.

All the tears and the sweat is forgotten, all the pain of broken dreams vanishes and all the struggles and heart breaks are worthwhile when at the end of the day, we know that we have done our parents proud by being the parents they were to us.

And then one fine day, they fly away. Just like we have long, long ago. The world that we have created comes to standstill. The home that was filled with noise and clutter lapses into a deafening silence. The hour hand in the clock moves on leaden feet.

We find ourselves engulfed by ‘the empty nest syndrome’.

We struggle to find our life for ourselves all over again.

We struggle to find a new meaning to our life all over again.

And yet, life goes on.

This is what we are. 

Whatever the outside world may conclude!

A few lines to express the feelings of all of us standing on that threshold with our hands empty and eyes looking into that vacant space that was once cluttered-

HOUSE FULL………..HOUSE EMPTY…………..

The house is full, things strewn everywhere, the walls smudged with crayons.

Toys and broken pencils, note-books and text books

With frayed brown covers all over the floor, their rightful place

The television blares out non-sense, and small bits of biscuits and wafers

Keep obstructing the path to cleanliness

Even as the curtains blow and the sofas get stained with

Bournvita stained tiny hands.

In the cacophony of routine, the lights go off and the water boiler shuts down.

Another happy day without bath and off to school.

Crisp uniforms and stainless white socks on polished black shoes

Tiffin’s with surprises and home-work not done. Browned white shirts and smudged pants,

Back-packs pouring out and sheer joy on tired faces.

Another dull day of complete chaos.

Coughs, colds, Doctor’s waiting room, anxiety, medicines and loads of pampering

New clothes, bicycle accidents, scraped knees and tears

Years push ahead. Festivals, family vacations and dinner time gossip come and go.

Pain, hurt, heart-breaks and soothing hugs, a sure sign of growing up.

Lights burn beyond mid-night, extra classes take the toll. Endless cups of tea.

Strained faces and difficult schedules that become a load on the heart.

Dreams dreamed and success achieved, all that takes away your and their years

Of carefree youthfulness and adventures of growing up.

Yet you both find joy in what lies ahead.

Excitement of new independence. Taking away the dependence from you.

New life. New friends. New decisions. New paths.

Slowly you move to the fringes, trying to stand

and make sense of the time on hand.

It’s no big deal you say, they come to roost. Till its time up for you.

A bird flies into the clear blue sky, next follows the second one.

You have strengthened the wings and filled them with power,

You pride in their flight and look towards the sky till the shadows disappear,

leaving a shadow of doubt and anxiousness in tear-filled eyes.

The home is spotlessly clean, the books sold to the paperman, the school pictures

Carefully chronicled in the album.

The dining table, the curtains, the empty beds are all that’s left.

Clean, dry, lifeless.

You look around. You look at each other.

We are all that’s left.

The circle from a full house to an empty house.

A complete life. An incomplete phase.

Somewhere on a tree a branch sways gently, a little bird lands with a twig.

A nest is built, the floor strewn with toys and pencils.

The walls smudged with crayons.

The house is full……………………………….

 DR. REINA KHADILKAR