Plant and wait!

As Anna and I walk pass these fruits in our garden during our exercise walk, we return to the time we planted them in the garden. All of them were planted about four years back except the pineapple, which was recently planted.

The custard apple tree was planted by Drs. Varghese and Nirmala Philip when they visited us. It is a good way of remembering them and the years of friendship. 

After we planted them, we did provide manure and water as and when needed. That was not too much of an effort. 

Even waiting was not a demanding exercise as we knew that the plants would need years to grow. 

The decision to plant was deliberate; the choice of plants was deliberate; and their location also was deliberate.

This is the significant part of planting. The decisions and choices. 

In one sense, the way we spend our time is similar to planting. How we spend our time and how much we give away our time and to whom we give our time are important decisions which have considerable consequences. 

I have been recently disturbed by the limited investment of parents by way of their time and availability for their children! I and almost drained of my patience when I hear many children grow up in homes where both parents or one are absent as they choose to go overseas for better prospects, leaving children under the care of grandparents. What I hear as the reason is, 'we need a better house and children have to earn for that'!

As we drive past the palatial houses,  where such children grow up with their grandparents, I feel a turmoil within. Children who cannot wait for tomorrow, because 'their name is today', grow up without the seminal and defining influence and nearness of their parents. Do we invest on brick and mortar or on human formation of our children. The justification of  giving them  facilities and not ourselves is contrary to the calling to parents to plant seeds of love, values, care, spirituality, character, truthfulness, mindfulness, etc. 

The four hundred or more parents who are missing from their homes where their children grow up, whom I have met during the last three years, is about thirty five percent of all children I have welcomed for consultation.   

I am frightened of this as I think of this. It is another issue of concern that parents who make a home for their children and live with them do not 'follow a child centred of family life'! If they did would parents substitute family times with TV viewing time or such other distractions. 

Parents try to impress me by telling how much they help their children with home work and learning! But the truth is that such times are 'violent' times in many homes when parents threaten, abuse, punish or frighten children, at the end of which parents feel exasperated and children feel accused for their genuine difficulties to learn, read or write or remember!     

Let us sow and plant to bring fruits in season! 

Children blossom when parents choose children to be their priority and make all adjustments to keep it that way even in adverse circumstances. 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)