Well I've turned 30 and you think I would know how to deal with 'worry' by now.
I was terrible at Math and worried incessantly about passing the subject in school. I would 'just pass' all the time and my parents would celebrate that like I had scored a 'centum' like a stereotypical person from my community would have. I was average in Physics and terrible in Chemistry and even worse in Computer Programs.
So, I passed high school learning to deal with 'worry'.
All of the above did not prevent my dad from 'insisting' that I study Engineering. Well, I may not have been a stereotypical person from my community but my dad was. Well, at least on the topic of education. So that was another worry-filled four years where I struggled through Maths, more Maths and more Maths. Have you see the syllabus for Electronics and Communications Engineering?
So I spent a lot of time in college, in 'worry'.
After I scraped through college, my dad benevolently declared that I could now choose to study whatever I want. I can still remember how he beamed when he said that. I think I was borderline clinically-depressed by then and educationally de-motivated So, his benevolence had little effect on me. I had applied to every creative program I could think of but no graduate school wanted a creative person who had spent the last 'six'years studying Science.
Well, I eventually went on to study two Masters in Syracuse which became a town I still consider my second home. Well, that's a whole other story. The point is there was a lot of 'worry' involved.
Will I finally study something I love? How do I fit in being the only Indian in my class? Will I get an internship? Will I finish this paper on time? There was a lot of studying and a lot of worrying.
I think the point I'm trying to make is that my educational journey has been a long one, difficuilt, challenging, worrying.....
Yet, all of that seems trivial compared to the 'worry' I carry around me about Ri's schooling. I carry around a tight ball that lies between my chest and stomach and I think I'm going to call it 'School Worry 2013'.
Believe me, I am a reasonable individual. I can counsel you through anything using ample doses of reasoning, spirituality and good sense. Yet, I seem to lose rationale when it comes to my daughter. She's smart and I care about her education and I have faith that I will ensure that she copes academically. What I cannot predict or control is who her friends will be, her teachers, her peer group. What kind of families will her friends come from? Will they be snobs? Will they be classy? Will they this and will they that? Is there a fool-proof way to select a school that ensures that Ri meets the right mix of people. Well, rather, my estimation of the 'right' mix of people.
Schooling and school friends play a huge influence on who turn out to be in your life. And, I get to make this huge choice for my daughter. Will I make the right choice? Will she make the right friends? What if I put her in an environment she hates?
I must confess I have several OCD's and am a bit of a control freak ( I can almost see my husband smile as he reads this on his Blackberry). How do I chart a fool-proof educational course for my daughter?
Well, there is a little voice in my head, the gentle voice of reason that reminds me that I cannot decide what the 'right' mix of people are going to be for my daughter. Nothing is 'fool-proof' and I have to learn to make lemonade with the lemons her school throws me.
I might want Ri to be 'prom queen' but she may be happiest in the Chemistry lab. She may be the class tree-hugger, party-pooper or the shy one who is happiest in the background. Why? She may even be the quiet one or the sullen one that everyone is wary about. Inspite of my best efforts, she may be the 'snob' that convinces her Daddy to buy her Prada at 16 ( Believe me, he will if she asks) or the 'girl with the purple streaks'.
Who am I to predict or guess?
I am her mother. And, now I know what it is to worry like one.
Everything else in the past, somehow, seems easy now.
