Vein in Vanity

Self-possession isn’t for everyone. But there are greats who always say and do the right things especially in challenging situations. Responding to belligerence with indifference, to doubt with confidence, to superciliousness with pity. Then there are some who never find their tongue.  I cannot count the number of times I have thought of “the fitting reply to that pretentious toad” long after the conversation has ended. Then promising to avenge myself the next time this happens. After all, playing out the scene a hundred times in my head should count as good practice? Sadly there never are any replays and in the rare case I have an another shot, things never go as planned.  What is it that makes some people so spontaneous?  Ironically it is because they think before they speak. At least that is what I think. You say lame? I say give me a chance and hear me out.  Now whenever I am having a conversation especially with the aforementioned “pretentious toad” kinds I wan

I was still in high school when my sister had her first baby. As cliché as it sounds I was over the moon. Consequently I played mother very enthusiastically and believed I was doing much better than her biological mother. Ergo the idea that I was great with kids took root. Now about 20 years later, it turns out I was right. I am great with kids. Just not with my own kids.     Your children are essentially you. My children are a smaller but truer version of me. And no I am not proud. When I see my daughter handling a tense situation the way I would (which is lose my mind and wring my hands) I do exactly that - lose my mind and wring my hands. Because why would I want her to inherit the “bad traits”? As parents aren’t we trying to raise children who are well rounded and happy? (Read don’t mess up as much as we did.) But children learn essentially through imitation. What they see they reproduce till they are grown enough to have an opinion of their own.  Now this forces me t