Time flies and so do our children

                                                                                                                             By: Sharmila Sanka

                     As a child, toys seem to be the life; as a teenager, fun seems to occupy one’s life; as an adult, family responsibilities and  wealth seem to be the life; in old age, health seems to be important than money. During the moments of death, LIFE seems to be the most important thing than anything else in the world. Let’s rethink- what are we teaching our children? What are we gifting our children with? Are we truly living that LIFE or are we vainly busy misinterpreting money to be the life?

                      Importance is given to the materialistic wealth forgetting the fact that money is just another form of energy used to ease our lives rather than letting it rule our lives. It is not life itself.  Life comprises of happiness, health, devotion, wealth, peace, wisdom, love, sharing, family relationships, contentment and many more aspects. But unfortunately we are letting money replace all these aspects and are living a life of infatuation assuming money is everything. We are letting money replace our family time, memories with children, bonding with friends and family, caressing someone in need, taking a deep breath, and living a peaceful life. I am reminded of a poem from my college days- “What is this life if full of care; no time to stand and stare.”

                    Children are the most precious beings on earth for a parent, at least they should. We spend our precious time in earning more than needed saying it is for the future of our children but what about their present? Who will spend time with them and mold them on the right path? How much time do we spend with them in a day, not on them or for them? If not parents, who would take the responsibility to create beautiful moments for the rest of their lives?  We are never content to create fame, serve the society leaving family behind, earn wealth in heaps but we are content with the very little time we spend on our children.

                         We take our kids and family for granted as if they are with us lifelong. But in reality, it is not true. In fact, no one knows how long God gifts us with our family members. We should learn to spend time with them the most. How fair is it to expect children to be with us during our old age when we do not spend time for them in their childhood? We neglect them unknowingly by not sitting with them and sharing our life stories with them. How much do our kids know about our lives? When they grow into adults and start having their family life, we become old, feel weak and so, we disturb them several times saying we want to see them and wish they are by our side during our times of loneliness or ill health. We are wasting their hard earned money, their precious time which they could instead spend with their children and their vacation by asking favor from them to stay with us at the wrong time.  

                      We cannot negate the fact that we get so busy in our middle age concentrating our efforts on petty things in life and so do not find time to spend time with them but who knows how long each family member will get to live with us with LIFE? Why repent when they leave the earth plane? Why not utilize our present to share our past life lessons and happy moments to create a hopeful and memorable future for our kids? Our children are our future; they are the ones who live up our values, culture and family traditions on our behalf. At the most, they stay with us under the same roof for merely 18 years which fly away very fast and it is unfortunate that we pretend we are too busy to not have time to spend with them for these few years. Once they are gone from our sight, we will repent and repent. Time flies and so do our children.

                            What now? How can we change the mode of living in this age of Kali? We are not too late, for we have life inside of us and we can utilize the remaining few years to the best of our ability.  Earn money but let’s not be greedy. The way we earn money for our livelihood is very important and is related to our life purpose. Every morsel that we eat should give us satisfaction that it is hard earned money and we should deserve every bite of it which keeps us healthy, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Our children will in fact learn from us to earn rightfully and live a dharmic life. They will know earning love and paying heed to the family is more important than earning with greed.

                              Realize…realize each other’s value before LIFE is forcibly squeezed out of us. It is time to update our priorities; remove useless time consuming stuff from our lives; reschedule our goals and show our children we are always there for them.  LIFE is precious than anything and it will be too late for us to realize when death knocks our lives making us repent in vain. Utilize few minutes every day to spend quality time with children, to build up their morale, to narrate spiritual experiences and miracles of the Lord, to be good citizens of their surroundings, to do good to the community, to become wiser and not just smarter to harm the society, to form and nourish their spiritual roots with the moist of devotional scriptures, to inculcate good thoughts, and finally to become a bridge to create a bond of devotion between them and the Lord who bestowed them to us. Create beautiful moments; memories for our children to share with their future generations;  become an example for our children to relate aspects from our lives that get imprinted in their hearts; live a clean life and become their inspiration but never a life lesson; let our present become a beautiful history for their future generations.  Let our children smile at life even amidst our absence. That is a true gift of parenting…..an eternal gift that never perishes, diminishes or vanishes in vain.