Last Friday, Yaya phoned me after school to tell me that she is going to her friend’s house and that she can’t talk long for the train is just about to arrive. Later that evening, she called me to say that she is sleeping over at her friend’s house.

Her friend’s mom is my best friend, her friend is going overseas for her gap year next week, so all the kids are spending as much time as they can with her and their house is close to the place where Yaya works every Saturday.  Technically it isn’t much of a big deal sleeping over at her friend’s place and it is convenient too for I don’t have to drop her to work. ( She could take the bus from home, but I feel sorry for her having to walk 1.5 km from the bus stop to her work place and often drop her off at work), Yet I was so mad at her. When she came back from work on Saturday, I told her by telling her that “I don’t run an inn, so you can check in and out any time you want to”

Sounds familiar? That is exactly what my mother used to say to me. And  I made Yaya so upset and she ended up crying.

Later I asked myself ” Would I have said No, if she called me and asked Can I have a sleep over at my friend’s house?” I wouldn’t have said No. And I don’t know why I had to fight with her.

It was the same thing about washing her drinking glass. All my childhood, I heard my mom complain mokkittu thinnu kudichu nadakkan mathram kollam, kudicha glass polum kazhukathilla.. I have a dishwasher and I still complain that my child doesn’t wash her drinking glass.

Often I wondered how children who were physically abused by their parents continue the same abuse to their own children, don’t they know how they themselves felt when their parents used to inflict pain..and now I think, we reflect our parents, at least I do…