Empty Nest or Distance Parenting

It is usually referred to by people as the empty nest syndrome when a child leaves home for higher education at a much happening place. And then the parents are viewed with sympathetic glances, deserving to be labeled as forlorn souls and with nothing to do at all. On the contrary when I entered into that phase of life, I found the entire scenario very challenging as it entailed a mature as well as precise participation of mine in my child’s life, really a calculated effort by which I had to guide as well monitor my child’s actions through motivation. For the first time in my life I realized that the presence of those values which I had imparted to her years ago were showing their results. It filled me with mixed reactions of awe and sometimes with indecisiveness. Though through the distance I monitored her sailing through the insecurities of daily affairs, taking care of her health, scheduling time for studies and committing to it, prioritizing the things and necessities of life.

After a certain stage exposure to real world and company to peers is most desirable thing in every child’s life. That makes our role as parents more crucial than ever, where we had to guide our child with few spoken words which we conveyed to her in a day. Therefore the conveyed words must match with actions of our life and worthy enough to be cherished. Instantaneously it shifts our position as a parent to a counsellor in the child’s life. Fortunately in this highly networked era of telecommunication, I often felt the heat of proving myself to be the best of the counsellor who aptly tele- counseled and unburden her off to accumulated strains of the day. It does really take great deal of mental strength to show your virtual presence in child’s life through your teaching, a real litmus test of parenting skills, is not it?

Now I feel that my task became more daunting with constant shift in my portfolios, from a mother to counsellor and then to best friend. Of course in today’s hi-tech world to handle a vibrant friend, that too of less than half of my age requires enough energy to carry on. Honestly I won’t hesitate to admit that this prettiest, bubbly thing occupies a large chunk of memory space in hard disk leaving no time to sulk and fret.