Passion

On By MeghaIn Parenting

It is often said that parenting is the toughest job you’ll ever come to love.

Logically, stringing the ‘toughest job’ with ‘love’ in one sentence comes across as an oxymoron. But if you’re a parent you’ll wholeheartedly agree that it is not the case.

I believe, parents go-ahead to indulge in the tough, exhausting drill of playing the parent fueled by passion. Because nothing else can possibly explain why wouldn’t a parent choose to give up as soon as the going gets tough.

“Passion. It lies in all of us. Sleeping… waiting… and though unwanted, unbidden, it will stir… open its jaws and howl. It speaks to us… guides us. Passion rules us all. And we obey. What other choice do we have? Passion is the source of our finest moments. The joy of love… the clarity of hatred… the ecstasy of grief. It hurts sometimes more than we can bear. If we could live without passion, maybe we’d know some kind of peace. But we would be hollow. Empty rooms, shuttered and dank. Without passion, we’d be truly dead.”  ~  Joss Whedon

Before you call it love, let me share my reason for choosing passion over love.

As a parent, there have been many occasions when my life has been so helter-skelter that I couldn’t slow down to feel the love. I know it exists but is hardly felt in the chaos that ensues from the time a child is born.

I sometimes feel that love we are so possessed by the problems at hand that we fail to feel the presence of love in our hearts or to make it felt by our children.

The one thing that flows in plenty in our world is unsolicited advise. Everyone is an expert in parenting unless they are the parents of the child in question.

As a parent one always treads on a fine line of doing enough for our children and failing ourselves, our expectations to achieve what we intended to. But the real deal is, the results of this balancing act are never known until you look down at your journey in hindsight.

As a child what I feel for my parents is entirely different from their perspective of the same situations. It holds true in case of my daughter and me too. However, this is the rule of life.

Every individual sees life through the lens they choose to wear, but a parent chooses to don the rose-tinted glasses of passion to look at their child every single time.

The beauty of being driven by passion is we are never exhausted of showering our love even if our children fail to feel it. We are so high on making them happy that no roadblock in our path looks scary enough.

It is passion alone that inspires us to swallow all pain, hurt, hatred, resentment or grief and keep going to fulfil our responsibilities, ticking every box to ensure that smile, that little spark in our child’s eyes stays intact.

Passion quote
Isn’t this quote true for our parents? After all,​ they’re the ones who taught us our first lessons in​ love and life.

Today has been an unusually rough day for me. I had an emotional meltdown following a tantrum and yelling by Pari in the afternoon. I was so upset that I couldn’t feel at peace despite tears streaming down my face for over fifteen minutes.

Finally, when the cloud of rage cleared giving room for peace and clarity, a sudden thought made me stop to think.

With the pace with which time has been galloping past my grip and my child is growing up, soon it’ll be time when Pari will be ready to fly out of the nest, leaving me behind.

This passing thought choked me for a moment.

I stopped to turn and look back at my current self from the imaginary podium in the future. At that very instant I realized how trivial these emotional meltdowns feel, perhaps I would have long forgotten them by then and so would Pari.

However, what shall remain is my passion to bring out the best in my child, the adoration with which I want her to be happy, the dedication with which I encourage her to be who she was born to be.

In the few years of my life as a parent, I am so absorbed by my driving passion that I cannot imagine my life without it. It fuels my existence, directs my life and governs how my tomorrow shall be.

Then why am I wasting these precious moments of our togetherness in belligerence?

That precious thought fanned the spark of passion sitting idle waiting to be noticed in me and in no time I left my impassioned, hurt self to take a back seat and moved on to play with my child as if nothing had happened this afternoon.

What according to you is the driving force for parents to love their children unconditionally and make silent sacrifices all the time? 

* This post is part of the April A to Z Challenge 2016. My theme is Parenting.

Please find my other posts here.

 

SaveSave

27 thoughts on “Passion”

  1. Interesting post. I believe that, as much as I am able, I am to represent God’s love for my child. God loves his creation passionately and we are the crown jewel of that creation, made in his image. I can’t love as selflessly as he does but by giving us a ​passion for our children God tries to show us how much he loves us.

    Like

  2. I think parents will never tire of doing what is best for their kids because this is a higher purpose than a career, or other things in life. When you decide to have children I believe you put them first above all else. I do not have kids myself, but I commend those who do.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I agree with you on that deciding to become a parent is in itself a promise to love the precious, little life more than we ever loved ourselves and care for its well-being with all our heart, time and effort 🙂
      Thank you for sharing your views.

      Like

  3. “It is often said that parenting is the toughest job you’ll ever come to love.”
    So agree! 🙂 I see it in my mom’s eyes. How she’s so tired and stressed out with her unique six kids yet she always chooses to love us. 🙂 ❤

    "What according to you is the driving force for parents to love their children unconditionally and make silent sacrifices all the time? "

    I think, for my mom and dad, no driving force is needed. It comes out naturally of them. ❤

    Like

    1. It is the passion of your parents to love and give away themselves so effortlessly to their children that you often think of it as it all comes naturally to them.
      Being a parent, I know it sometimes takes every ounce of my will power to go ahead and be as forthcoming I can be despite my body screaming otherwise.
      Thank you for sharing your views Rosema 🙂

      Like

  4. richajindal

    For me as a parent I have realised accept your child the way he is. Every child is born with a special ability, that can ruin the relationship in non acceptance.
    Richa.

    Like

  5. fabulus1710

    Just a thought I wish to share, now that the topic of love and passion has come up:
    Sometimes, we children understand that our parents love us. And are passionate about wanting to fulfill our every need. And ensuring that we reach the pinnacles of success. So it’s okay, if at times you get a little upset and angry with us, because deep down we know it’s momentary. We know that the passion is always there, it just gets pushed away because of the anger.
    But sometimes, if we get angry too, we could even forget this thought. And that’s the time the level of passion is tested. Every parent has their own unique way of handling this, but in the end, everything does come back to normal. It may take seconds, days, weeks, years, decades or even death. But it does come back to normal 🙂
    Cheers, and hugs. The meltdown and the reason for it is, as you said, trivial 😀

    Liked by 1 person

    1. That is a very valid and important point you made Fabulus.
      I have seen such scenarios in my immediate family too, where the social conditioning of parents kept them from accepting their child as he was. The building pressure to be a socially accepted, obedient child can often snap off the ties of the bond of love parents and children share. Though you’re right that eventually all will be back to normal, but the time gone by in between is crucial too. We are ageing every minute and letting our children or our parents hold a grudge, failing to see their points of view is wasting this precious life. Life or a portion of it spent devoid of the love that could have been there with simply understanding is wasted. That’s why being passionate enough to change and adapt is crucial.
      Why not adjust, accept, be open-minded towards our children than letting them move away from us and then suffer the pain for the rest of our lives?
      As a parent I think, losing a child to our beliefs is a parent’s biggest loss. Every generation needs to leave enough room in their hearts and minds to accommodate the changed views of the next generation.
      I hope I made sense in this post-long comment.

      Like

  6. Passion you took lovely topic for P. In parents as you said that passion that keeps them all going to love selflessly is so true. You know through your posts am quite able to understand parent’s perspective which i feel is important for every growing child to know the reasons behind their anger and stuff. Keep writing am lov’n your posts 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

  8. Good post. As a parent I fully agree that we can get wrapped up in the day to day living and forget about love. As in your post the awareness of fleeting time and the little one growing far too soon is what brings me back again and again to the heart connection.

    Like

  11. Acts of passion can be manifold! Ultimately in a relation for life, it is all about the love for each other, that needs to words, the unconditional love you had spoken about so eloquently. We do what we do because we think of the child’s best interests. Children also understand that deep down though they may not be able to respond accordingly.
    Awesome post as always.

    Like

  12. The beauty of being driven by passion — so much beauty in that analogy. Yes, there are child rearing experts everywhere, many write books and make fortunes, many just drop in and give unsolicited advice. Much is good, but it could be overwhelming. I think that first sentence … the beauty of … makes parenting possible. The love, the passion is an amazing driving force. I’ve worked hard in my life, but never harder than when I had my son, and that work, to varying degrees continues. Despite all the exhausting work, I do it with love.
    Great, thoughtful post.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. It is our passion to make our child’s life beautiful that keeps us going strong against all odds and do things we never thought we could.
      Thank you Silvia 🙂

      Like

Comments are closed.