Step into my shoes.

Bringing up a son or a daughter is not easy. The task becomes difficult when one of the parents is little worried about what will be lying in store for them as they begin schooling, complete graduation and end their search for a career.

The implication is manifold- finance, securing proper grading, and higher education and so on and so forth.

Parents try and maintain a constant vigil till these goals are reached one by one. If the mother is a home maker, she literally studies with them, prepares them for exams, except for writing it herself.

If she happens to be an office-goer, financial support is ensured but the constant attention, on the wards, suffers a little or becomes an additional load.

The father has only one focus – to urge them to do better and better. Some fathers do help in studies, project works and suggesting additional learning activities, all with the aim of preparing them to face education & employment goals with ease.

This attitude makes the wards to dislike the regimen. This feeling is more in students nursing their own priorities in life, different from that of father.

Few kids express their feelings openly & politely. Some resent and store it in mind. A few rebel against the constraints.
Let us meet the father of an out spoken kid. The kid has now become a professional.

It is time for the father to ask for some little help – downloading, posting, a repair or such things. The ever polite young man, reasons out when he could do them or why he could not do them.

A temporary difference of might begin and end quickly. Each side conceding, some ground. The son might find a little time to do the works or the father himself might work out alternatives.

Next, let us meet the father of a squirrel minded kid. He is a young man and has his own share of troubles - adjusting with job environment.

His father had to ask for a little assistance; e-Payments, booking /cancelling of journey tickets or such similar things – while out of station. The cell phone call from his father, inadvertently, triggers an avalanche of anger.

The stored resentments try to surface and using little harsher words, he says, “I have no time for such things and pray tell me, why I am being disturbed. I have enough work on hand and worries in the mind, will you leave me alone?”

After this exchange of words, both of them maintain silence & distance for some time and wait for the ice to thaw out, slowly. The son tries to fit in a little time to extend help or the father himself tries to complete such jobs- with the help of friends.

Finally it is time for us to meet the father of an impish minded kid. This man had shrunk his psyche, becoming sensitive, over even small issues - a closed loop of stimuli & response. He had started living in a world of his own, intolerance masking his short comings.

This professional is in the habit of getting in to some controversy or other, with his colleagues & work, day in and day out. He has failed to let go the childhood attitude of “why should I?

This attitude isolated him from forming friendships and becoming irascible.

Once, his father just asked him why he cannot share some his daily chores, in the house. This casual remark of his father only aided the pressure on the suppressed resentments, to shoot up. The volcano simply erupted, spewing rage on his parents, particularly on the father.

After waiting for the outburst to subside, the father said, “Look, we all have problems. If you were in my shoes, you would readily understand the way I still struggle to keep us all going”

Haughty that he was, the son raised his voice and said, “The same thing goes here also. To understand my difficulties, try wearing my shoes instead. You will not even last a day, in my environment”

This smouldering anger stung the father. He quietly withdrew from the scene of conflict and sat thinking for a while. The son left home for a walk in the park, to cool down.

The son stopped talking to his father and avoided being present in the same place at the same time. Wondering what he had done, the father tried to put up with this indifference. Hurt and remorse playing spoil sport.

A week after the incident, the son asked his mother, “Did you see my pair of shoes? They are not to be seen where I left them last” The mother, not liking son’s disrespectful behaviour, remained silent.

A few hours later, the father showed his wife the two pairs of new shoes he had purchased and said, “He was right; his shoes are hard and hurts. So I decided to buy shoes for both of us”

His wife stood, rooted, with a faraway look for some time and finally said, “Like father, like son! Don’t drag me in to mediate. Both of you sit together and try to clear the mess”

The impasse continued and the uneasy calm around them made the Father and son to understand the true import of the phrase “step in to my shoes”.

According to the last available indications, they are still trying to reach out to each other – holding olive branches and cactus plants.
Why only sons? Why not daughters?

Oh yeah, if you can step in to her shoes, why not?