Yesterday when I went to pick up Yaya after her guitar classes, the moment she opened the car door, she said
“Mom, guess what?”
As you all know, that one question gives me the heebie jeebies. There are endless answers to that question and as usual I imagined all the worst possible outcomes.
“what happened? ” I asked her
“S and N are dating”
S is my friend’s daughter and I consider her as my own. S’s mom met her husband when she was 16 and they have been married for 18 years. ( One of those teen love that is still going strong)
“Gosh, she is at the same age when her mom met her dad” I replied
“Yup, I said the same thing to her and she actually cringed. She is not in love with N mom, it is just a physical attraction”
My daughter’s response was such an eye opener. When I was her age and had a crush on a boy, my mother imagined me marrying him and all hell broke loose at home. Her attack was two pronged, first was that I was too young ( mottennu virinjilla ) to have any sort of attraction to the opposite sex, she insinuated that there was something wrong with me, because my feelings were not normal and good girls from good families wouldn’t feel the same way. Second , she listed out why a marriage with “that” guy wouldn’t work out. The odd thing is, I had not thought of marrying the guy either, but I didn’t know then that love and physical attraction are two different things. I learned from Amma that you marry a guy whom you are attracted to, which was such a wrong thing to do.
The good news is, my daughter is matured enough to know physical attraction and love aren’t the same. One of these days, she will bring a boy home to introduce us to him. I hope then I will have the maturity to accept that she is living her life and I will be happy for her and won’t do anything that will cloud her judgement.
Why should she introduce you to him? Why should she need your acceptance? Why you expect all these? Marriage is just an adjustment, a contract breaking of which is more now days. Going with somebody else seeking the Eldorado in the new partner and it goes on.
Bipin: I don’t believe in marriage, I believe that I have a right to live with anyone I chose to and the church or the govt do not have the right to tell me if I could do so. When my child brings a boy home, she is doing it so to introduce her family to him, for he will be part of our family. I look forward to that day, mostly because I would love to see whom she picked, what she liked in him, not because she would need my approval, but because until that moment, she sees her life through my eyes and at that moment she is her own person..It is a moment I look forward to..where she learns to cut the umbilical cord connection to me and I learn to let her go.
Although I have a long way to go, before my son gets into dating scene (he is 8 yrs old, and only girl he likes as of now is mom, aka me). However I see that many of my American friends tell/encourage their daughters/sons to focus on high school and getting into a good college/uni, instead of wasting time on Boyfriend/Girlfriend stuff. I personally think that it is a lot for a teenager to handle and go through the emotional roller coaster of dating. I hope I can talk my son into/influence him to consider that education should be primary goal, not finding the “the girl” at an age, where lots of things donot make sense. When I was a teenager, I very well understood that all the people around me were in the same boat: unstable carrier wise, knowing what they wanted in life, and still starting to navigate real life. My ultimate goal was to be financially stable in my carrier and find someone on my terms, some one who fits my life, not just fall in love and repent, when the romance collides with reality of life. I see some of my friends married to totally un-deserving guys, where they could do much more for themselves. They fell in LOVE at a wrong time, and let that one move take over their whole life. I think a child with lots of confidence and self esteem can avoid such lame decision, wait till the time, they are mature enough to make decision, on what kind of people can enter their lives. But it is easier said than done 🙁
Joan: My best friend met her husband on a school camp. Both were 16. They never dated anyone else. They have been married for 18 years, have 4 children. He did engineering and she did medicine, while they were living together after they graduated from high school. ( both worked part time while studying and rented their own one bedroom house..) There is no such thing as maturity or making a mistake. some marriages work, some don’t.
True, but this is not norm, but an exception. Any relationship can fail any time, however younger people handling relationship mess is harder. No matter what, a parent needs to be close to the child, as a friend, advisor, but mostly for support. Children should be able to come to parents, when needed, so they donot end up feeling alone, or go to wrong people for support and advice.
Joan: The ‘norm’ is feeling attracted to the opposite sex if you are straight (or the same sex if you are gay). The norm is falling in love in your teens. It is not Norm to tell your child they are too young to have feelings for the opposite sex or that they should concentrate on studies for education is everything. It is the responsibility of the parent to understand that your children’s emotional and physical well being is dependent on you. but at the same time it is not right to manipulate them to follow your perceived notions, in your quest to protect them from the big bad wolf are not the norm.
From my own experience and from what I have seen around me…I could state with reasonable confidence that, teenage love is more towards superficial attraction than to a quest for deep rooted companionship. Human beings are designed to propagate the race…and the creator has coupled this task with one of the most intense feeling of the nature. Like everything else in the nature, which is designed follow the natural instincts, human beings also tend do the same.. The only thing which ask us to reconsider the urge is the evolved mind, which finds some of its bearing points on social prescripts…and most of which is based on religious teachings (the early human settlements and societies were based on common believes)…Getting back to the point…if a teen is emotionally matured, physically evolved and know exactly, what he or she is and what he/she wants…then there is nothing wrong in selecting a partner of equal calibre…Most of the teens (I would like to repeat, most of them), I have seen so far are not emotionally matured to really know what he/she is….
John: It is not about maturity and falling in love..Yaya herself said the attraction her friend has for the boy she is dating is purely physical..In the Indian context, you are not supposed to feel that attraction, because you are told you are not matured enough to feel that sort of attraction. Most India parents tell their children to concentrate in their studies and do everything, so their children don’t “fall in love”, because teenage love is not serious. My point is, teenage love is normal..feeling attracted to the opposite sex is normal.