Abu and Rabad’s cousin Pr___ (who is 18) was with us this weekend. She is starting college this week, and she will be staying in a hostel. Abu\/Rabad’s friend Sw___ (who is 9 years old) was also with us on Sunday morning, and when we were all together, I asked the kids this question:<\/p>\n
“Pr___ is 18 years now and going to stay in a hostel. Do you think she feels like an adult?”<\/p>\n
“Yes…,” they said tentatively, not really understanding the question.<\/p>\n
“Actually,” I clarified, “I think that Pr___ does not feel like an adult. I think she still feels like a kid. Can you guess why?”<\/p>\n
This question made a lot of sense to them. Answers came in quick and fast:<\/p>\n
“Because she still has school stuff to do” (I guess engineering college is “school stuff”)<\/p>\n
“Because she still does not have her own money.”<\/p>\n
“Because she still cannot stay in her own house.”<\/p>\n
Pretty impressive, I thought, especially since I hadn’t though of these answers myself.<\/p>\n
“Do you want to become adults fast?” I asked<\/p>\n
“Yes,” said Sw___. “No,” said Abu. Rabad said “No,” first and then changed her answer to “Yes.”<\/p>\n
“Why?”<\/p>\n
Sw___ rattled off the answer, “Because I want to do whatever I want, and I want to go whereever I want, and I don’t want any parents bossing me around.”<\/p>\n
“You don’t like parents bossing you around?” I asked.<\/p>\n
“Of course not,” said Sw___, and then suddenly put two and two together, “Oooh. Pr___ doesn’t feel like an adult because her parents are still bossing her around?”<\/p>\n
Pr___ nodded her head tragically in response.<\/p>\n
“So, when do you think Pr___ will feel like an adult?”<\/p>\n
“When she finishes her college and gets her own house and a job,” again Sw___ had an answer ready.<\/p>\n
There was a pause while everybody digested this new thought. Then Abu countered:<\/p>\n
“No, after that, you have to get married. And then your husband or wife bosses you around.”<\/p>\n
At this point, I had to step away for a few minutes. When I came back, they had apparently had a conference, and Abu told me: “First your parents boss you around. Then you grow up and get married and your husband or wife bosses you around. Then you get children and they give you a headache. After that your grandchildren give you a headache.”<\/p>\n
“Is that so?”<\/p>\n
“Yeah.”<\/p>\n
I decided to neither draw any conclusions, nor to prod the children into any conclusions. So there was another pregnant pause.<\/p>\n
Then Sw___ spoke: “If you are an adult, you cannot sit on swings, and you cannot jump on the trampoline.”<\/p>\n
“You cannot make somersaults,” added Abu, “and you cannot jump around.”<\/p>\n
I don’t know whether the kids drew any conclusions at this point; I’m just reporting the facts.<\/p>\n
(This post has been read by Abu and verified for accuracy, after a few factual errors were corrected.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Abu and Rabad’s cousin Pr___ (who is 18) was with us this weekend. She is starting college this week, and she will be staying in a hostel. Abu\/Rabad’s friend Sw___ (who is 9 years old) was also with us on Sunday morning, and when we were all together, I asked the kids this question: “Pr___ […Read More…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,58,25,17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smritiweb.com\/abu-rabad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smritiweb.com\/abu-rabad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smritiweb.com\/abu-rabad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smritiweb.com\/abu-rabad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smritiweb.com\/abu-rabad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/smritiweb.com\/abu-rabad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":141,"href":"https:\/\/smritiweb.com\/abu-rabad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137\/revisions\/141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smritiweb.com\/abu-rabad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smritiweb.com\/abu-rabad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smritiweb.com\/abu-rabad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}