Sounds strange, right? To parent your parent? But it is even stranger to see your parent behave like a child. An adult with salt and pepper hair throwing tantrums can be a real pain. You don’t know whether to reprimand them and take revenge on your childhood grudges or empathize with their age, as you will be soon reaching there. Either ways you can’t escape the parenting part. Parenting your parent.
I’m still laughing at myself for writing this. But a troubled friend, whose mom was making her do innumerable visits to the bank for petty transactions that could have been easily done over the phone, sparked the idea for this blog during our casual conversation. My friend cribbed as her precious reading and writing time was gobbled up by bank visits or drafting letters to the bank on opening or closing of an account. While giving her a patient ear, I soon realized my condition was no different and so would be the plight of all my friends in their late fifties or early forties.
We are the eighties generation who have children approaching teens and parents hitting the sixties or seventies. Both are equally draining responsibilities. To the former, yelling, punishing, and frowning works but the with the latter, you can’t forget aakhir rishte mein toh wo tumhare baap lagate hai!
After a lot of deliberations, here are some of my parenting tips to handle the second innings of life:
#1 A call a day keeps the nagging away
If you are someone like me who doesn’t lives a stone’s throw from her parents, and can’t meet them once a day, please make it a point to call and check on them at least once a day. Yes, I know they will complain about how Pratima Masi is a bore and how the watchman fell asleep while on duty, but do give it a patient listening. You need not fly like the Spiderman and rescue them from self-created agony, but your absent minded ‘hmm’ also does wonders.
#2 A stitch in time save nine
My father loves his general practitioner. He visits him to discuss cricket, the National Education Policy, the melting of ice in the Antarctica, rising aloo and gobi rates, etc..etc.. etc. But never will he bring up the frequent urination at night or the pain in the joints. This he will blame on my mother’s cooking policy.
That is where I step in. A monthly visit with the specialist scheduled according to Papa’s and my convenience helps me to keep a tab on his food habits and in the long run, if possible, avoid an emergency. A half yearly full body check-up comes next after monthly doctor visits.
#3 A coffee date after doctor’s visit wins the race
‘Why do we have to shell out thousands every month for a specialist?’ A grumbling adult needs a filter coffee to calm him. The udupi crunchy dosa to make peace with the weird policy of his progeny.
‘I’m hale and hearty and don’t need your help to stay fit.’ You have to just gently pull out the chair, so that the trembling gentleman can sit and complain.
For such coffee dates, I make sure to put everything else on hold. I even cancel cooking for the day because I need a therapy session after such dates. But inside the tough mantle of ‘I don’t need you’ is a soft mass that is asking, ‘When will we be meeting next?’
#4 The grandchildren therapy
Yes, you have the best tools to manipulate( okay, let’s say convince) your parents. Your children. I might sound evil, but anything your children say or do to your parents is a welcome change. My mother might blame my inadequacy of following a strict kitchen timetable due to my fruitless Instagram scrolling.
Yet, when it comes to clicking pictures and videos with her grandson, she is guilty of charring pots and pans. The two forget realms of time and space while indulging in social media. Also, the grandchildren teach technology to these oldies, which helps them to pay bills, order grocery and medicines, book a cab, and chat with long lost friends sitting on their favourite aaram khursi.
If there is anything you can’t do, employ your children for the same. One is your child, the other is child-like. Not much difference.
#5 All work and no play makes papa a dull boy
Politics was my father’s first love, which he had to abandon after marrying my mother. Post his retirement we encouraged him to join the local political party as a volunteer. He soon scaled up the ladder and is now the regional head of that concerned party. While his post or designation doesn’t matter to me, what makes me happy is when I’m not able to fulfil any of his demands there are other people who are happily coming forward to help him. In times of emergency, these people rush for his aid and take charge of the situation till I reach.
Also working on his long-lost dream, keeps him productively occupied, thus, less of tantrum throwing.
Well, I have just begun the parenting side of being a parent to my parent and believe there is a long way to go. Yet, every day when my parents behave like babies, I silently acknowledge and thank God for the fact that they are still around to bother me. There will come a time when the inevitable will happen and my this very blog will hold no value for me. The destiny will wash away my written words with them, leaving a void that can never be filled.
We can have more children but never more parents. The irony kills me. The fact that one who changed your diapers is going to need diaper-changing hands needs acceptance. Let those hands belong to you. Hold the hands that once guided you to the kindergarten. Walk along with them who once chased you in the garden. Snuggle close to them who once sat all night as you were wheezing hard from asthma.
I can’t write more as words fail to describe what it means to have your parents around in your early forties or late fifties. A rare opportunity to express your gratitude for their unconditional parenting. A proud feeling of becoming parents to your parents.
Isn’t it?