Parenting Pleasures

I am going to generalize here, which means what I write below need not be true for every parent on the planet but I believe it is true for most parents. Of course, not many might accept it but trust me they are lying for what I am about to generalize, quite arbitrarily, is true.

Most parents don't realize how cute their children are till many years later. The cuteness of the children only becomes obvious when you see them in pictures many years later. There is a scientific reason for this (assuming you believe I am a scientist). The child in the picture is different from the child in flesh. As the years pass, the problems of the past seem like child's play. When your son or daughter is three, the issues you are dealing with are "how do I make him or her sleep by midnight?" or "I better watch that kid else he or she will swallow that balloon." or "Why the hell is she or he not eating the tasty bowl of keerai!"

Now compare these with the issues at thirteen. Your child has just entered the phase called teenage and he or she is questioning the sanity of the adults around him or her for making him or her wait another three years to get a driving license. He or She demands holding the steering wheel of the car while you handle the gear stick and the ABC pedals. The above mentioned issues at thirteen seem quite innocent as soon as you run into his or her life in the social media or that damned game with all those annoying dance moves, Fortnight. Suddenly, your worry about keeping your son or daughter safe and away from strangers transform into keeping him or her safe and away from himself or herself. He or She talks about the prevalent usage of the "four letter word" in his society but has no qualms about using it with his or her friends on chats. Their chat room conversation transcript read like a Quentin Tarantino script.

Thus parents take many years to realize the cuteness potential of their child as they are stuck with their annoyance capabilities. A couple were wistfully looking at their son's pictures from many years ago when the son walked into the room. The father looked up and commented "Look at you then! All sweet and cute". The boy turned around and responded confidently "I might not be cute now but I am handsome".