independant thinkers and their parents

'... so ma, what you're actually saying is this,' my son said, 'you brought me up to be a free thinker, questioning popular thought, looking for my own answers, finding my own truths, but that's only with the rest of the world... not with you, right?'

what can i say, the boy is right!

who is this alien in my child's body?

32 tries later, i managed to get through to the exchange. i gave my chellam's roll number and dorm number; the call was put through.

we chatted a bit about what was happening in her life and mine. then 'ma, send me my red strapless bra please,' she said.

'why kanna? didn't you take enough underwear with you?'

'ya ma, but i went shopping with atha for clothes for my birthday and got a dress with wide shoulders. i need a strapless bra.'

so we got into a discussion (that's a nice word for what actually happened) about spending money on things she already had (two sets of clothes to wear on her birthday specifically, plus at least a dozen more because the others were 'worn and ratty, and just not the kind of stuff i like anymore'), and protests that she didn't have enough, and finally ended with the darling daughter saying her evening was ruined with this phone call, and did i really have to call and ruin her day.

how do we get from being the rock in our children's lives to being adults who they think are only set to ruin things for them? here on one side, is a child who thinks she is completely misunderstood and hates her parents, and there on the other side are parents who can't understand why they can't ever do anything right, who feel hurt at the insolence and disrespect dished out on a regular basis, and wonder why the children can't see how much they are loved.

i don't understand my daughter any more. nothing works. this will pass, everybody tells me, but will the scars fade? or will both of us look back heavy hearted, with one wishing she was born to different parents, and the other missing out on the togetherness that could have been, the closeness she never had with her own mother?

today most conversations with my chellam leave me in tears; wondering how things got so bad; longing for a child who loves me back the way i love her.

i wonder what she wants.