“What will you be when you Grow-up?”.
Years ago, my friends 10 year old cousin Anirudh, asked this innocent question to his aunt, my friends mom, in a direct unassuming way that only children can, most times.
I still remember there were a few other people in the drawing room, when aunty was just doing her tidying up work. She stopped, straightening the cushion mid-air, everyone suddenly stopped doing what they were doing. It was too apparent not to notice. I got super curious about what was going to happen. Suspense !!
What will be her response. Will anyone come and respond on her behalf. Will Anirudh say something more.
After a long pause….
She just gave an awkward laugh. And said, “I have already grown up.” The cushion suddenly got beaten a little more.
I felt this gut wrenching pain. There was such sadness, in that statement. It was loaded with regret, anger, stifled dreams.
It has stayed with me ever since, Anirudh’s question. I made a mental note of that , I did not want to beat a poor cushion someday.
After 18 years almost, I met this question again.
Yesterday, My friends for the last 28 years ago, met for Diwali dinner, yes yet again . We were 14 of us families, kids, our children had literally grown up together. It was nostalgic and fun.
Another dear friend, has a young son, about 11 year old, Aryan. As many mothers do, she was “showing off” his piano talent and made me see his video. It was long. I have to be honest I find this is annoying. But this boy, was amazing, naturally talented, he was sitting across us on the other side of the long table. I asked Kavita, my friend to let him pursue this. Her immediate response was, but he does not study. “He needs to study first”, She said, in a slightly louder voice, which I assumed was more for the benefit of Aryan.
Mothers can be quite cheeky like that. No chance is left unexploited to say what they really want say. In seemingly innocent ways. I smiled quietly.
So I addressed Aryan directly, and asked if he wanted to learn piano. Kavita, again interrupted. “Tell aunty what do you want to be when you grow up” That question again. But now in reverse setting. It was so annoying, how they just assume the kid can’t answer for himself. He was 11 not 2. It also struck me, how a question about ‘learning’ became about ‘becoming’. I waited.
Aryan, looked confused. I could tell he wanted to say something, but knew from his mom’s tone, something else was expected. And he wasn’t sure if it would be lying or if it would upset his mom. So he chose the “safe” option. And kept quite.
That is how we silence our children, I thought. Speaking on their behalf. Until eventually they just keep quiet to not upset their mom. I made a mental note to talk to Kavita later. I make many mental notes. I made a mental note about that.
I tried again. I brought the question to me, to take the heat off him. A 11 year old had to answer this Important question, in a few seconds, in the midst of this chaos. A question many of us are still grappling with. And then I imagined he would be held accountable at a later date, because “He said so”. The things we end up doing.
So, I laughed and said to him, “Ask me who do I want to be when I grow up”. This was and is a very real important and serious inquiry, that I have from time to time. I was not joking. Anirudh’s mental note was still fresh.
I also thought he would get curious. I was mistaken.
Kavita, and the others at the table laughed, they thought I was joking. And finally Aryan said, looking at me, an amused smile on his face, “What will you be now aunty, you are already grown up.”
In that moment, I knew – He had.
More laughter happened. We laughed, the question and its implications, off in jokes. Like we often do when things get uncomfortable.
The first incident years ago and this, somehow came together, a full circle. I was in a state of suspended animation.
What will you be when you grow up. What a Potent beautiful ongoing Inquiry. Marred by an assumption and notion of it being a linear journey with a “fixed destination” called – Growing-up.
What does that even mean? Growing up. How do we know, one has grown up.
Is it when you don’t need potty assistance
Is it when you don’t need to be tucked
Is it when you realize Santa Claus was secretly your mom or dad all along
Is it when you lie to fit in with your friends and think it is ok
Or
Is it when you are permitted to socially drink.
Is it when you get a driving license
Is it when you have to pay your own bills
Is it when you can make your own choices about food, clothes, curtains, friends
Is it when you no longer have to ask permission to do something
Is it when you ask yourself what are your own values, what is important to you, today.
Or
Is it when you learn to apologize, without being asked
Is it when you choose your words and actions based on how it may affect people around you
Is it when you can be vulnerable and not feel shamed later
Is it when you no longer need to block somebody, or delete their pictures because of a fight
Is it when you can see how far you have come from reacting in a certain way
Is it when you can eat ice cream for breakfast without feeling guilty
Is it when you look around and see, how you are part of everything that is happening, good bad and ugly. The buck stops with you.
Or is it when you finally realize Growing up is a journey without a fixed destination. Like a flower, we are always “blooming”. There are different sign-posts, yes, but growing up is never really done.
We are such funny confused lot. In the first few years we keep coaxing and forcing children to speak, walk, believe in fairies, and stories of animals, express, run – and then spend the rest of ours and their lives asking the opposite of all this. Don’t talk so much, sit in one place, don’t make things up, be real, keep quiet. Sigh !!!!
Some years ago, I had a glass of wine, for the first time, I did not like it at all. I still had it. I though it was time I acted like a grown up. I was so silly. I realised I had “notions” of what it means to be a grown up
Modern societies are very interested in tracking how children grow up. Twentieth-century psychology, beginning with the work of the Swiss clinician Jean Piaget, pioneered an approach to child development which meticulously identified and labelled every principal stage an average infant might go through on the developmental journey of its earliest years.
Thanks to this work, we now know that at six months, a child will be able to sit up on its own, pick up a small object using a thumb and forefinger and recognise its own image in a mirror. And god forbid, if your child does not meet these goals. But, did we sit and wonder what does he/she “think and feel”, when they do that. Who does he/she really see in the mirror, does he know it is “him or her”. And at what point the “stage” changes on the inside and can that be measured and studied and quantified?
Are these not important things to ponder?
In the way we think about the business of Growing up, we make some things OK and automatically some things Not OK.
We frown upon people who have Imagination and called them Dreamy– “Get your head out of the clouds”.
We stop people from crying and feeling sad at things that are sad. We call them Fragile – “Don’t be too emotional”
We stop people from Dancing and Laughing loudly. We call them Crazy – “Please..don’t make a fool of yourself, and me”
And so, we just keep shaving slicing parts that were important to us, that made us Us, off. To be ”Grown-up” . It does then stand to reason, that we ask and know, for what are we giving up all this.
Or we go the other extreme and refuse to.
I read about this case of a 14-year-old boy in Mexico who had such an intense fear of growing up that he took extreme steps to hide or curb his growth, such as restricting his food intake and distorting his voice, He suffers from a severe “growing up” phobia.
If I look around, the confusing paradox is everywhere. On the one hand, we are asking People to Not Imagine – Not Dream -Not Feel – Not Hope- Not Express – Not speak their Truth. On the other hand we are facing crisis and serious short fall of Imagination, creativity, empathy and emotional connection to ourselves, each other and the Earth.
When will we SEE this.
Who said we needed to be only one thing when we grow up. Why do we have to forcibly spend 35 years of our lives doing something ,that after 4 years of studying, we realized was not our cup of tea. Who gets to decide what makes you happy from inside.
We unknowingly, with “good intentions” push people to the brink. And then wonder why we have such mental health crisis. Why relationships are so fragile. Why we can abuse the earth and not feel anything. Why are there wars for peace. Why one generation pushes the envelop of it’s unlived hopes and fears, to the next.
How long till we carry our Parent’s voices in our head and make decision based on that. And will this ever stop. When will we realise we don;t have ti continue re-runs of the past.
Perhaps we need to really sit with the question of. Have we grown up? and know it as a different inquiry from Have we become Adults.
A few weeks ago, My friend Quanita and I were talking about how our society is getting older but not wiser. We have people who are “Older” but no “Elders”. In our unconscious almost rebellious obsession with NOT growing up, we keep running away from age. No wonder we are such a death phobic society. And so we don’t really Live.
Perhaps we need to ask, today if someone asked “What will you be when you grow up” what will be our answer. Can we notice WHO do you want to be, and WHAT do you want to be are two very different questions?
I can tell you I have a few things, I still want to Be.
I want to be a hair stylist. A stand up comedian – A drummer – A contemporary dancer- A French speaking, coffee shop owner – A Photographer with National geographic. An applied Physicist. A Sufi singer. To name a few.
It’s not so much a bucket list of things I want to do – but a set of different people, I want to be.
Maybe we have gotten it all wrong, the premise of ONE day. Maybe its a myth. Perhaps we need to see that One day maybe Today. COVID should have taught us that much atleast about the nature of time and impermanence.
Perhaps we need to really “grow up” in the way we perceive things, live and make our choices of Being. And realize there are NO guarantees. Does not matter what. that card you signed when you bought that TV , says.
At the dinner table yesterday, there were 14 people. Of all shades and sizes and age and experience. I don’t think I could with any certainty, point out to some and say who was grown up or not or who was still growing up.
Maybe we follow our own heart for once. And let our soul guide our steps, words and actions. Perhaps it is OK to have our head in the clouds, sit on the muddy floor with white pants on and Imagine a beautiful world. Even if you are labelled Mad. Even if your heart breaks.
Maybe that is what attracts us to children, this audacity. And maybe that is why we keep silencing them, because we don’t have the courage to listen to the truth, that we have as “grown-ups” learnt to drown out.
Maybe we dream a world where the mind is without fear and head is held high and the soul is still soft enough to be moulded by the clouds and textured by fire and held by dragon flies and nurtured by the gentle and sometimes strong winds.
I hope we Never stop exploring and Growing up.
Madness
Are you mad?
They ask, in a voice – That betrays, their masked concern and love
Disbelief and also regret.
To me It sounds like “Are you alive?”
And the answer is – Yes.
I am safe in my madness – Alive. In my own way.
I can curl up in the space, Between sanity and insanity
And breathe the unadulterated air
Non judged – Not caged – Not slotted into
Mundane meanings. – I am free.
If you have to understand me, You have to really let go ;
Of doing just that.
Because in your understanding – I am imprisoned .
Let me dream.
In the process – I might come to understand the boundaries;
But I would’ve experienced the expanse.
Let me fly,
In the process -My wings might chip
But I would have soared – The height my heart wants to scale.
Let me walk on water.
In the process – I might drown and die;
But I would have at least lived on my terms.
Let me be; in my madness – I might never relate to your world
But I would have explored – the very depths of me.
Let me Be.
Mad.
Rhea
4 Comments