License to parenting

Today having a baby is a huge affair. From the websites which update you about the weekly progress of the LO growing inside you to the maternity photo shoots. Having a child is a decision to make and not a natural process for a married couple unlike before. So it is celebrated in a fancy kind of way. Once you know you are going to have a baby ....the celebration begins with the way you tell your parents...cousins...friends and relatives ...followed by continuous debate and discussions with your friends who are pregnant along with you...then comes the grand photo shoot where you pose with your husband and make memories for a lifetime. There are some things which I dislike but come hand in hand with pregnancy today. How much weight you gain while expecting is a topic of discussion for everyone you know. No one is ever really happy with how much you have put on. It is either less or more. Anyways the reason behind this post is not discussing pregnancy but highlighting parenting. The question is do we celebrate parenting as much as we celebrate being pregnant? Do all of us understand what it really is? I am no god but I am a mother and I have my mind in place. Since I have come to India for delivery I have seen all kinds of parents. Not that Indian parents living abroad are more sensible than parents in India but they are naturally well behaved and carry the civic sense. What hurts my heart terribly is that being a parent is taken so lightly. Kya farak padta hai are the most dangerous words a parent can utter and it seems to be the motto here. A sensible parent should be able to teach his/her child basic keys to living a healthy and harmonious life. Parenting is reduced to clicking selfies with your child with a pout! Important habits that have to be embibed in the child from the age of two to three years old are conveniently ignored. I see parents throwing garbage on the road...a father spitting his lungs out in front of his son....kids wasting water like they create it themselves....just today morning I saw a girl holding a big piece of thermacol and littering the garden of the complex. What was shocking was her mother was right beside her busy chatting with a friend. I become speechless and feel a sense of shame that we Indians are such ignorant parents. We do not care about our surroundings and so fail to make our kids understand the same. Evan keeps questioning me when he sees waste being thrown on the road and I tell him that even if others do it he should not. I also tell him that he is free to politely tell people doing wrong to do right. There should be a license to parenting. Parent's capability to not just produce a baby but their sensibility to upbring their child should be screened. Otherwise we will have no scope of a better India!