Devils on my shoulder

           My shoulders are drooping with the weight of the two argumentative devils that I’m carrying around with me these days. My head aches with their constant bickering (which they call talking sense) echoing in my ear. My neck is stiff from all the swinging to the left and right following their voices. They came to establish residence after a deep soul searching talk I had with my better half about how I was overwhelmed dealing with my kids. The final conclusion to the soul searching talk was that I should bow out (the words used were butt out, but I prefer to keep my dignity intact) and let my girls deal with their work by themselves, thus hoping to encourage a sense of responsibility in them. STOP mollycoddling being the gist of the conversation.
          
           We all sat at the table the following morning and held another soul searching talk with the girls this time. “Now both of you are big girls and can take care of your stuff yourself. We are sure you can manage the homework on your own without having mumma hold your hands while you are at it. If you don’t understand anything, mumma or papa will help you out, but we won’t clean your mess or take care of your stuff. If you forget to take a book to school, so be it. Next time you won’t forget. If an assignment is due, mumma won’t remind you and keep on reminding you ad infinitum. It is your work and you do it.” And many more such laws were laid down and served up with toast and oats at breakfast that morning.

           Thus started a new regime, where I put my foot down and stopped running at their beck and call to look for errant pencils and books which were ‘just here’ but now apparently weren’t, or trying to intervene when I heard “I didn’t take her eraser, she took mine, no she took mine, this is mine, no mine”. I shut my bedroom door firmly and mentally ordered my feet to lock down. My mind too helped me with this mission. I could feel my mental fingers poking me in the eye when I tried to see how neatly (actually how untidily) they had done their homework. Let their teacher tell them in front of their peers how untidy their work was. My mind ordered my tongue to be paralyzed when I tried to remind Anoushka to put her English notebook in her bag. All that came out was a strangled ‘gooo oo gooo oo’. Let her forget it today so tomorrow she’ll remember to take it.  When I saw Gia’s pencil box under the bed instead of being in her schoolbag where it was supposed to be, my mind ordered my kidneys and bladder to take over and that sent me running to the loo. Let her look for it herself, or not, if she so prefers, and then she’ll  never loose it. Imaginary ropes tied my hands down when I tried to put their socks in the laundry basket. Let them not have clean socks to wear if they don’t put them for washing on time. The toughest time my mind had in controlling me was when I saw Anoushka running down to play without revising for her test the following day. All the troops were in action this time: tongue paralyzed, imaginary wad of cloth stuffed in mouth to stop me yelling for her, mental fingers holding my ankles lest I run after her oooing and aaaing with the wad in my mouth and the notorious bladder making me change direction of trajectory to the loo instead of after Anoushka. Let her make mistakes if any. Then she’ll learn to revise on her own.

           That night we all retired to our beds, the girls feeling a sense of liberty with their mumma off their back, my husband with a sense of deep calm, nothing new in that, he always went to bed with a sense of deep calm, leaving all the real and imaginary mental duels to me, and me with a sense of anticipation that now I may get some time to call my own. But Alas! that was not destined to be. The next morning…..Poof….Two devils suddenly materialized out of thin air and took residence on either side of my shoulders. Each had an opinion and a strong one at that. Lets call them A and B, any resemblance to them being mine and my husband’s initials is just a coincidence. Here’s an excerpt of their never ending babble.

            My head whips to the right, A:” How can you let them be? They are your little babies who will need your presence in their life, especially at this tender impressionable age. Your advice and your voice of reason is a foundation stone to what they will become.”

           Head to the left, B:” You aren’t dying, you know. You are not leaving them, you are just going to stop hovering over them and overseeing all that they do. Is it really so important for you to get them to improve their handwriting and to keep their room tidy. A little untidiness never hurt anyone.”

           Head to the right, A:” Good handwriting instills in them a practice of being neat and it is a reflection of what they should aspire to be: neat, organized presentable. Untidy work just reflects an attitude that says I don’t care. I think you should indeed teach them to be better organized and to care for their work. Looking over their shoulder and nudging them to do well is not hovering.”

           A stiff neck trying to turn the head to the left, succeeding and, B:” Letting them learn from their own mistakes is a lesson well learnt and not easily forgotten. Let them fall, let them get up.”

          Creaking sound from the neck which never saw so much exercise in so many seconds barely turns the head to the right, A:” There is a long life ahead with many pitfalls. If you don’t teach them how to take care of themselves, how will they ever pick themselves up from a fall. Giving them a helping hand now shows them how to get up. Teaching them how to be observant, helps them avoid the pitfalls.”

          Neck has finally given in, holding its neutral position, the baton has now been passed to the eyes, which henceforth do the swinging, this time to the left. B:” You can’t monitor their life for them. Let them be strong enough to take care of themselves without turning to you all the time.”

           Eyes to the right, A:” If not you, who? You can’t monitor their life, but you can reassure them that no matter what, you will always be there to support them in whatever they want to do. There will be a time when they will fly the roost, but there is no point in pushing them off the precipice when they haven’t yet learnt to fly.”

           Eyes to the left, B:” How will they ever learn to fly if you never let them? “

           The bickering is still on while I pen this down. My imaginary fingers are poking my eyes every time they try to turn and an imaginary cotton ball is stuffed in my ears to stop the argument from disturbing me from expressing my woes. A part of my mind is indulging in this fantasy where my shoulders droop so low that the tenacious buggers slip off, while the other sane part is trying to understand the arguments put forth by the devils and to come to a workable conclusion to the matter, so that both the devils are appeased and leave me for greener pastures. I leave you now to go aid my brain for the sake of my sanity.