This post is about me growing up, the part where my parents disciplined me to turn out better in life.
I hail from a very remote part of Bihar. When I was in school, electricity in our native was available on an average of about 10-20 hours per week! Most of time, I recall us burning the kerosene lamp around the house. Ironically, that did not do my eyesight any good as I’ve ended up with sore eyesight in my youth. Being part of an average middle class family back in the day,I consider myself lucky to have had the luxury of almost everything a child of my generation ever needed to live a decent life. So much so that most kids those days would have demanded from their struggling parents, for me it was all pretty satisfactory.
My parents never failed to discipline me. Their one and only strict rule was to do well in studies, never get into fights with anyone. It was odd being left out of normal boyish characteristics,but rules were rules and the mischievous me found ways to exploit them. This ended up with me getting beaten by dad for misbehaviour. It might sound cruel and harassing, but its funny how I look back to those dreaded times and value the control my parents had over me. Even if it meant getting beaten by them once in while, I think it was essential to my growing up so that at no point I was every going astray. Obviously, I used to hate it at that time. Today, I laugh about it. Infact, this morning I was reminding my dad of how mischievous I used to be and we laughed. My dad says it was part and parcel of his love towards me.
Growing up, we get to hear of children going astray. When I hear about the miserable stories of kids smoking weed, taking drugs, using abusive language and disrespecting their parents on account of social security, I simply feel disgusted. Somewhere discipline was lacking. Not that I want these kids to take a beating but I feel that some level of control and discipline is lacking which is very important to mould and groom them into becoming better individuals. Too bad that most of them grow up and never realize the importance of lacking self discipline.
For me, growing up was strict.I still remember how much I cried after class 10 when my parents decided to send me to a boarding school in Delhi. Looking at my current state and the success I have achieved it was their decision that led to my betterment today.
Disclaimer: I am not suggesting parenting has to be strict, it was just the way I grew up and the incidents that have contributed to for me write this post.