When He Plays, She Prays

Parenthood comes with a price. Not only does one get a replica of oneself but also a life long responsibility of being emotionally attached to one’s offspring. It’s not something you buy off the shelf and then have it shelved if doesn't work according to your specifications. But the hurts can go deep.

I love my children. I still have albums of photographs taken when they were babies and just about every milestone in their young lives. And I often wonder how I had managed to bring them up. It had seemed effortless at first but then, for that, I have my parents to thank. They were there for the children when I was working. They were there for them when I was going through my own emotional roller coaster. It was only when I became a stay at home mum, that I took back the reins. By then, like a young sapling that has become a big tree, changes become twice as hard, if not, almost impossible.

Why am I being so melancholic today? I am just reflecting on the heartache of not being able to get through to their little heads. Am I being too much of a queen control? Is it wrong to want your children to do well in life; to do better than me in life? Have I forgotten my own uncertainties when I was at their age and yet I seemed to have turned out quite all right in the end; albeit a little late in life and not discounting the fact that there were a lot of life’s lessons to learn along the way.

The words, “When I was at your age…..” are perpetually at the tip of my tongue but I have to remind myself time and again that when I was at their age, there were no handphones and no iPods. When I was at their age, there were no video games and life was simpler in more ways than one. We never dare to talk back to our elders. We didn’t question their instructions; obeying was the ONLY option. Well, at least, it was like that in my own life. I try to understand my children. I want to understand them – what makes them tick, what makes them do the things they do. It’s a terrible thing when you see them walking towards a pothole in life and you yell out to them to look out and all you get is, “Leave me alone!”. If only they know that I feel every tear that roll down their cheeks when things go wrong and I feel every frustration that they go through when things don't turn out the way they want.

I know they are individuals in their own right. They are not me. They have their own path, a journey already written by God when He created them. But like me, they must make their own choices which will influence the direction they shall be taking along that path. I know. I know. But it’s much harder to live that knowledge and let go.

A friend told me a story about a woman and her son who seemed wayward and unteachable. The woman had only one response.

When he plays, she prays.

Will you pray along with me?