When Yaya was in grade 3, one evening, She came running to me when I went to pick her up from school, holding a piece of paper in hand ” Mom, I got 49 out of 50 for maths”

Without thinking, I asked her “Why only 49? What mistake did you make? Did anyone else get 50?”

Have you ever watched the sky during a storm? Have you ever seen massive dark clouds fly straight over the sun and block it? In an instant the smile from my beautiful daughter’s face vanished and was replaced with a ugly frown and I realized I am turning out to be a typical Indian mom. What surprised me even more is the fact that I myself got plenty of mottas ( zero marks) and still expected perfect results from my child.

I realized that I made a huge mistake. What my child expected from me was something totally different. She wanted me to be happy that she did her best and accept that sometimes her best is 49/50, not 50/50. I also remembered my grandmother teaching me that there will always be someone better/smarter than me, just as there will always be someone not as smart as me.

It is very tempting to ask each time when my children tell me how many marks they got for the exams, Did anyone else get the same/better score? But I don’t, because my children are my pride and joy, I am happy for what they achieve and my joy  is not related  to someone else’s achievement.

Now that the older two are in high school and a lot of their projects are group work, I get to meet a lot of other parents. Parenting is a very competitive industry and often my children are used as a yardstick by other parents. Mother of one of my son’s classmate asked me recently what grade my son for the Science assignment. He got an A+. She said ” You know what, my son got a B and I was so mad at him and asked him “Are you kidding me?” And in the next sentence she said ” He did his assignment in the last minute and I didn’t have time to read it and correct it, I think that is the reason why he got a B”

I know there is no point trying to explain to her that my children do not always get an A. My son got a B for history in grade 7, Yaya got a C for history in grade 9. I am sure both of them got few other B’s over the years. Of course they are smart, but they are not perfect and I don’t expect a perfect score. I have not scolded them for getting a score less than A. What I expect from them is that they give their best in everything they do.

To this day, I haven’t edited any of their assignments. I won’t do it because it is not my assignment, it is theirs and if they don’t know to do it, then they better learn and do it. If I correct their work, then it is me who is writing it and it becomes my assignment. I don’t want them to get an A, because their mother is very smart, I want them to get an A, because they  took the time and effort to learn and did their work well..

Yaya’s assignments are all in Spanish, so I don’t get to read it even after  it is graded. My son will bring home the work he did and was corrected and graded each term before the term holidays and I go through them.. It is such a delight to read his assignments. I love the way he writes. Sometimes the teacher will not return the assignments because he/she wants to keep their work as a sample for the next batch and I will never get to see those assignments. My son finds my behaviour too intrusive if I asked for a copy of the work the teacher kept and we go on this merry go round “why do you want to read it? It is my assignment, what are you going to gain by reading what I wrote?”. so I stopped asking.

My point is this..Each child is unique. Your job as a parent is to encourage them, not to clone them to be a perfect child following others. And if you do follow others, accept that those children are also not perfect.