An Equal Love

I have been looking at old photos from the past 3 years. Baby Number 2 is due in a little over 2 months. I know am going to be very tied up with him or her as newborns need nit percent attention. I am apprehensive when I think about how it is going to affect Samarra who has been the center of our attention for the past couple of years.

Do parents love their children 'equally'? Is there anything called equal love in the first place? I personally don't think there is any such thing. It is not humanly possible. For example, the rebellious daughter who has an earth-shattering opinion about everything and is a renegade, will obviously be less favoured than say, the perfect son who keeps his thoughts to himself, is controlled in his emotions and has a calm and well-adjusted approach to life. It is only human for parents to gravitate towards the offspring that is most like them or at least gives them less of a hard time! So where is the question of equal love? It is a myth...

I was reading up on the subject. One article concluded by saying that while parents may not like all their children equally due to conflicting temperaments, they certainly do love them impartially. It glorified the concept of unconditional love. I thought that was bullshit. All love is conditional. Parents are not Buddhas, however much they may profess to be.

I meet a lot of parents. I am in the business of meeting parents! And most of them are parents of teenagers who are giving them a hard time. One such mom came to me the other day with her issues. Son was playing up in school, getting into trouble all the time. She wanted me to help. I enquired about the family and their dynamics. I also asked about his other siblings .That is when this entire myth of unconditional love exploded in my face. This lady has two other children; girls. Both are fairly older than the boy in question. You should have seen her face light up when she spoke about the girls- how studious they were, how obedient, how wonderful to be with, how she loved being with them and doing all kinds of mother-daughter things. When the topic diverted back to her son, her face clouded up in what I read as exasperation. That is justified given the fact that she has an awful lot to deal with. But it was her remark that got me thinking. She said she couldn't help wanting him to be like her perfect girls! Enough said...

I wonder what my next kid will be like. Samarra has been wonderful all these years and we have thoroughly enjoyed bringing up what others consistently point out to be an "easy and lovable kid". What if my next one is a rebel and a renegade? Will I love him/her any less? Will I also join the legions of parents who say that they love their kids equally but secretly curse fate for gifting them with progeny they cannot relate to? I know it has been easy for me to sit in judgment over parents who have openly confided in me that they wished they never had that particular bad egg son or daughter! Now that I am soon going to be faced with raising two kids who will undoubtedly be unlike each other, I have to see how I fare...

For the moment I am leaving such thoughts aside. Here is a series of photos of my little girl breaking out into a smile. If this is not happiness, I don't know what is...