Parenting now is not a kid’s play

Yesterday a huge newspaper advertisement about a baby show at neighborhood school glared at me. I looked at it and then ignored it and then gave it a sly look. I knew for sure that my Mr Right doesn’t get excited about such shows. His reason: “my baby is not to be upheld for advertising of any sorts, whatever he is… he is good enough for me”.

Right then a neighbor – who is also a close friend and has a son about the same age as my son – popped a Whatapp message, “hey lets go to this baby show tomm…. It will be a good exposure for kids ”.

The school in question is located in the next corner, so all sorts of excuses ran futile. On the pretext of inquiring about school fee and curriculum I dished out a proposal for attending the baby show to Mr Right. Surprisingly he agreed (may be because I mentioned the school curriculum and admission inquiry instead of the baby show).

Today, it was icy cold but I was surprised to see harried parents running towards school along with their kids. And kids, my my, were dressed in attires cut straight from Bollywood. A little girl had put on fairy dress, a boy was dressed as krishna, another one was dressed as politician, and my kid was in the rockstar avatar. I had done the basic minimum – put him rugged jeans and jacket and a spiked hair. Every kid beamed with smile, chased balloons at the school campus, got busy drinking cola and munching chips.

Of course there were the regular rounds to judge a kids’ activities, parents’ awareness and other things. What struck me was that there were so many parents even from very humble backgrounds. This whole glitz wasn’t just about middle class people. Also the awareness rounds proved that every parent had decent knowledge about hygine, good eating habits and even about inculcating good habits in kids.

A decade ago the numbers for such parents could have been less. Almost all parents were curious about admissions, curriculum, schedules etc. Given the fact that most kids there were below 3 years and the concern that parents had for these kids and learning processes was really noteworthy.  I cant really say if so much concern is a good thing or not but then in a society where good schools = good marks = good future equation holds prominence what else can you expect from a parent?