The one thing I hated the most was to see Yaya cry and somehow even as a newborn baby, Yaya knew just how to get my full attention. She cried non stop in the first year and then at least once a day till she was 5. I never knew why she was crying and it was really tough on me because I didn’t know what to do to help my baby. Eventually, I resorted to bribe and I promised her that I will bake any cake from any of my recipe books if she didn’t cry for a full day and managed to bake it for her after she turned 5.
The past 10 years have been easy for she only cried if she was in physical pain and at least I knew why she was crying.
Yesterday while having dinner, as usual, I asked each of them how was school and what did they learn? Baby talked about her maths exam, my son talked about how much he hates Geography and how much he loves history. ( Which by the way was exactly how I felt when I was in school) and it was Yaya’s turn.
We were having Channa Bhattura and I was happily eating my food and then it occurred to me that Yaya wasn’t saying anything. I looked at her.
That is when I saw the tears rolling down her cheeks..like the flood gates of tears were opened.
In that split second of me opening my mouth to ask her “what is going on?” I imagined all sorts of horrible things that could have happened to my child and I was sure, I failed to protect my child from whatever that happened.
“What happened Yaya?” I asked
It took her few seconds to answer and for me those few seconds perhaps were the longest I ever had to endure.
“I am not learning anything in school” She replied.
For a second, I didn’t get it. I was expecting something horrible.
“huh?” I asked again.
“Mom, what is the point of learning Pythagoras theorem? How is it going to help me in my future? No one in my class cares about their future. They are pretty happy learning all these crap that gives you no benefit. Why don’t they teach us something useful?”
“like what?” I asked
“How to do my taxes, don’t you think that is more important?”
Before I could answer, we progressed to bigger issues.
“Mom, what if I don’t get admission to university? What if my life is wasted? What if I never achieve what I want to in my life?”
I knew Yaya was suffering from existential crisis (http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10269.aspx). You don’t need to be gifted to go through this. Everyone goes through this at least once in their life. So, I told Yaya about my first driving test. As I sat next to the examiner, my palms were sweaty, my legs were literally shaking and I felt breathless. I couldn’t even insert the key in to the ignition and start the car.Then it occurred to me that every individual who is right now driving on the road has gone through the same stage..in that I wasn’t alone feeling like this. Knowing that I wasn’t alone gave me hope..I passed the road test and failed the parking test.. ( managed to succesfully hit 3 of the 4 corners!) Like Yaya, I too questioned the need to learn all these irrelevant things when I was in school..There is no easy answer to her questions and she wouldn’t understand right now that doing taxes is the easiest part, earning the money to pay the tax is the hardest part..Right now, I hope she understands that she isn’t alone..
Ah! I thought I was I was suffering from midlife-crisis-slightly-early. Now it has a slightly better sounding name. Is she feeling better already? At that age I used to bounce back pretty fast.
URT: She is fine now.. but I am pretty scared..We seem to have random crying sessions for no apparent reason..
She is going through a difficult time of her life-that age is not easy! She is probably feeling ambitious and going through sessions of all-of-this-is-nonsense-i-am-wasting-my-life at the same time. Together with all the hormones andfeelings one never new existed, peer pressure for all things silly and important, she is going through a lot. She will be fine. what you are doing is fine. Just be there for her so that she can talk to you whenever she wants is the best thing you can do.
URT: You are so right about peer pressure.. Each year, I notice the increase in peer pressure.. it is only going to get worst the next 2 years.