Parenting

How to get the perfect child!

Want the perfect recipe for the perfect child? One who is morally upright, socially intelligent, well groomed and presentable, one who excels academically, and achieves success in every walk of life? One who doesn’t thrive on social approval but is loved and appreciated by everyone he meets? One who never throws a temper tantrum, is astoundingly obedient yet omits leadership qualities too? One who is always seen with a smile on his face, and smoothly sails through every trial and difficulty? Sounds like a fairytale, right? Yes, because it is.

Striving for perfection in our children, the perfection we define and understand it to be, has killed their curiousity, their uniqueness and their innate need to be different. It is human, to make mistakes. It is human, to fail and fail again, before reaching success. It is human, to live life with some bad days, and some good. It is human, to be wicked good at one thing, not too great at another. Do not strive to make them paper perfect, strive to make them human, so they know how to live in a human world, and understand how to relate with the weaknesses and failures of other humans. So they empathize and show compassion.

Perfect children don’t exist. Humans, do. And perfect parenting is realizing the beauty in every imperfect child, empathising on every bad day, appreciating every failure in the journey to growth. Perfect parenting is only making them better every, single day, with every mistake they make. And perfect parenting means, it’s okay if you’re having a bad day, or you’re low, and tired. It’s realizing you’re human too. And knowing that, that’s perfectly okay.

– Hanna Seyal

Are we a society of humans?

Parenting is one of the hardest jobs, if not THE hardest, that an individual will ever have to do. And unfortunately, rather than making it easier, our society has made it even more difficult, to the verge of being emotionally traumatic.

A few days ago, I witnessed a single mother racing between her two toddlers, desperately trying to contain their excitement amidst a family event. Buried under embarrassment and the struggle to get two small kids to sit down quietly, she was also being constantly targeted by every single individual around, mother or not, throwing remarks on her poor parenting, “btameez bachay” and “bichari” situation. Also finding the worst possible timing to give themselves a pat on their back for never having to experience something like that, themselves. Instead of getting up and helping a person in dire need, they resorted to playing the audience of a reality show – smirking at her desperation, taunting her decisions, passing expressions of disgust at her kids.

This, this is what’s wrong with our society. This is what’s wrong with any society that claims to be a part of the human world. We were meant to spread love and understanding, run for any opportunity to help a sister or brother in need, we were meant to empathize with situations we might have never experienced ourselves, we were meant to learn from mistakes of others, before becoming a bad example. But we chose the opposite. We chose to mock, ridicule, and find every chance we got, to prove that we are somehow better. And in doing that, we just prove, we are not…..

The next time you see a struggling parent, help them…

Parenting is one of the hardest jobs, if not THE hardest, that an individual will ever have to do. And unfortunately, rather than making it easier, our society has made it even more difficult, to the verge of being emotionally traumatic.

A few days ago, I witnessed a single mother racing between her two toddlers, desperately trying to contain their excitement amidst a family event. Buried under embarrassment and the struggle to get two small kids to sit down quietly, she was also being constantly targeted by every single individual around, mother or not, throwing remarks on her poor parenting, “btameez bachay” and “bichari” situation. Also finding the worst possible timing to give themselves a pat on their back for never having to experience something like that, themselves. Instead of getting up and helping a person in dire need, they resorted to playing the audience of a reality show – smirking at her desperation, taunting her decisions, passing expressions of disgust at her kids.

This, this is what’s wrong with our society. This is what’s wrong with any society that claims to be a part of the human world. We were meant to spread love and understanding, run for any opportunity to help a sister or brother in need, we were meant to empathize with situations we might have never experienced ourselves, we were meant to learn from mistakes of others, before becoming a bad example. But we chose the opposite. We chose to mock, ridicule, and find every chance we got, to prove that we are somehow better. And in doing that, we just prove, we are not…..

The next time you see a struggling parent, help them…

Hanna Seyal