Toughest Job

I continue my reading of "A New Earth" and also watch its author Eckhart Tolle conducts classes with Oprah Winfrey on the web. I come to know that children absorb negative energy emanated by their parents. Eckhart says each of us has what he terms a "pain-body" which is an energy field of accumulated emotional pain. Hence your anxieties, anger, insecurities etc can unfortunately be sponged up by your kids too.

Furthermore when parents fight, the child picks up the emotional pain. Even if the parents make a conscious effort not to fight in the child's presence, the under current and negative energy prevailing in the home environment is sensed and absorbed by the child.

Honestly, parenting is such an ardous task, don't you think. First of all we are not taught or trained the techniques of good parenting despite its importance (there is no universal fool proof manual). We have to depend on our own intuition and good intentions to act in a manner we hope will be best for the children. Then again what is best for our children is not as obvious as we choose to believe for the simple reason that we are not our children. Often the lessons we learnt from our own life experiences and upon which we apply our judgement and decision-making may not be relevant for our children. Not only because their character and constitution is different but also because their aspiration differs due to the differnt environment they grow up in.

Then there is always the dilemma of how much we should stretch them to develop their potentials before they snap. How many knocks can strengthen them and which one will be a real knock out. In addition, do we emphasise the practical aspects of livelihood lest they become poor starving artists; or do we encourage them to chase their dreams lest they lead a regretfully mundane and unfulfilling life.

And now this added responsibility of making sure we do not emanate negative energy, (when we wish we know how to shake them off ourselves). This coupled with the countless times we are often misunderstood by them, makes parenting the number one toughest job on earth. Toughest because it hurts so much more when we deem we have failed.

(on a brighter note- this common feeling of guilt is something we need not worry too much. Perhaps this can be the subject of another blog)