Parent Imperfect

Manojendu Choudhury

4 July 2007, 05:10

The kid was confused.

It was not the first time he felt that the world was unfair to him. He had felt it when his mother had left him at school. Then, for the first time, he was all alone, fending off the intrusive gestures of his fellow beings. His mates, tender, friendly and bullying, had introduced him to the world outside the cozy, secured confines of his home.

He had started to perceive that the velvety, secured existence that his home offered was not something to be taken for granted. But, even in that cruel act of leaving the kid alone at school, the mother’s expression had oozed all the love and affection that he was used to. So he had accepted its aftermath in his strides. Eventually, as he developed a liking for this new life outside his home he forgot his initial perception of his mother being cruel to him.

Similarly, he had felt very distressed on many occasions when his father had forcefully coaxed him to accomplish various acts: putting on his shoes by himself, getting up all by himself after a nasty fall, or simply feeding him against his strong wishes. But even in those moments, his father had embodied the shield that protected him from the vagaries of life. The perfection of that security had remained unblemished.

But today he was confused.

Slowly he had been grasping the concept of cause and effect. He was reprimanded for being naughty and praised for being a good boy and punished for disobedience and rewarded for deference towards the elders. Yet, today his faith was shaken.

In his life so far, he had never bothered about the minor irritations that he had subjected his parents to, all the time, day and night. Today was like all other days, he had not done anything new or novel, and yet, he earned his parents’ ire. He didn’t realize that he was growing up, and in his growth his stature of an irritant was also growing, resulting in the disruption in the parents’ demeanour. He felt it was unfair, and was hurt at his parents’ expression of their anger. The unblemished surface of the parental protective shield had developed a few minor cracks.

It was not the first time that his parents had been angry, but today for the first time his maturity enabled him to comprehend the proper concept of anger. He was confused because using his simple understanding of cause and effect he was not able to locate the origin of this outburst. Was it him who was to be blamed, or his parents, and why?

Over the next few days the cracks that had developed in this shield seemed to have healed itself, but like all healed cuts a small scar does remain, even though mostly indiscernible to the eye. Slowly he learnt to monitor the disagreements of his parents, their occasional inability to cope with the stress of daily life, the slow degradation of their unflinching disposition while attempting to meet his demands.

As days went by, the natural friction of everyday existence became more prominent. He realized that many a time he was not to be blamed for any indiscretion but was being blamed and chided nevertheless, both in and out of the home. There were moments of tenderness shattered by violent tempers, and the scars in the shield of perfection grew along all dimensions.

As he grew, the love and care that he received didn’t diminish, but that facade of perfection slowly but surely disappeared. In his eyes his parents assumed the proportions of normal humans, with typical frailties of character. As he grew, he became accustomed to the situation and started to take it for granted that his environment was normal. But the parents’ fall from grace remained unforgiven in some dark unknown recess of his mind.

As he entered adolescence his awareness of the world’s imperfections bore a cynicism that made him barely tolerable at the best of times and nihilistic at the worst. His own confusion continued to preponderate over his understanding of the world, as the law of cause and effect was not able to explain many features of life. The sense of being betrayed by his parents remained embedded somewhere in his consciousness, as they didn’t appear to regain the stature he had perceived them to possess in his infancy.

As the years passed, age mellowed him; perhaps a growing awareness of his own frailties mocked him to submission. Now, as a grown man, he becomes a parent himself. The man marvels at the small bundle of flesh, his child, and realizes it can be a near infinite source of love. He glows at this reflection of innocence in his arms, perhaps rediscovering his own feeling of perfect bliss that he had left far behind. He discovers the protective shield he wants to keep his bundle ensconced in. A shield without blemish, that will remain free of scars forever. The sheer exhilaration of newly found fatherhood blinds him to his own imperfections.

That small bundle grows, loving, intelligent, but exasperating, testing his patience and temper from time to time. He realizes that ever so often he himself is breaking the promise of providing the unblemished cocoon of blissful protection. His child, an independent life form, deviates from the preordained path of growth that he had charted, at every possible juncture.

The child, in all its lack of experience but poessing free will, stumbles in every pitfall on the path of growth, repeating the mistakes everyone commits in the process of learning. Perhaps because it subconsciously reminds him of his own imperfections this irritates the man. The series of minor irritations caused by an immature living entity slowly starts to take its toll.

Gradually, he is unable to hold the cocoon that he had envisaged around the child. The burdens of professional and personal commitments do not let him provide the unwavering attention that the child demands. And one day, he loses his temper. His patient, loving demeanour snaps and unleashes its pent up anger on his loving but demanding child.

When his fury is spent, he sees the same feeling of hurt, the same sense of betrayal that he had experienced years before. But this time it was he who was on the other side of the accusing finger. Overwhelmed by love, he holds the child in his arms, hugging tight, as if to physically restore the emotional cocoon that had been perforated in a few places. Feeling his love flow from his being to that of the trembling, sobbing child he understands the fallacy that had had him confused all his life.

Love doesn’t mean the bondage of a cocoon, no matter how unblemished the cocoon may be. Love implies setting free, love implies letting go. A child will never let go to set itself free as long as the cocoon of parental care is not broken, and it is the imperfection of the parent that forces the child to set itself free. Unless the child sets itself free it will not be able to love, for it will always remain dependent, and dependence results in selfishness, the antithesis of love. Thus the cycle of life is able to continue.

The man held his trembling child to his bosom, patting its back, conveying to it that it has to learn to chart its own path, fall on its way, and regain its foothold to carry on walking. A perfect parent will distance oneself willingly to guide the child on its path. An imperfect one, like most on this earth, will force the child to walk on its own by their imperfection. The man conveyed further, that despite all imperfections, the parent can never help but love their children, but one has to become a parent to realize it.

Humans are imperfect, perhaps it is necessary to be so to be capable of loving, which is a journey towards perfection. As an infant grows into adulthood, its growing insecurity compels it to build a cage of make believe self to project on to the world, hiding the real person behind. Love breaks this mask of impersonation and exposes the vulnerable self. Love is the force that the imperfect persona needs to unshackle itself to freedom, from vulnerability to strength, from imperfection towards perfection. Perfection doesn’t need love, perfection is being absolutely free having conquered vulnerability and insecurity, it is complete in itself.

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