SHE stood up with a shock when she saw her 22-year-old daughter arrive.
She was eating but hurriedly folded her plate, and rushed to wash up.
No one could understand it and asked her what was wrong, her daughter had by this time gone to her car and was irate.
The mother explained to us with absolute pride that her daughter had just arrived from campus and was hungry.
She wanted to go home, so her mother could dish her food. What? “Does she not know how to dish up her own food?”
The woman went on to proudly explain how she does everything for her children.
She even sets out their clothes, and packs their bags for school and campus.
Does that make her an exemplary mom or a really bad one? I thought it was just ridiculous.
How will her kids survive in the world if she were not there? Then I got a rude awakening.
We were at a function and stood in line at the buffet.
While dishing food for my daughter and myself, I noticed my son standing and just waiting.
I told him to dish up but he looked at me blankly before taking the serving spoon and attempting to put food on his plate.
He couldn’t even hold the spoon. He didn’t know how to. Why? Every single day without even thinking about it, I dish food for both my kids.
I make their lunch and even set out their bags for them.
I thought the fact that my kids could eat with a fork and knife was an achievement on my part but it wasn’t.
See, I showed them how to use the tools but not how to acquire what is needed for it to be used.
I began to watch my kids closer. I came back from dropping them off at school and saw their disposable milkshake cups thrown at our front door.
I was furious and left them for them to pick up when they got home, but when we got home the cups weren’t there.
I asked them where they had thrown their cups and they told me at the front door. I demanded an explanation.
Their response was they knew the domestic would pick them up.
On another occasion, we were at a store and a lady in front of us dropped the sweets on the floor.
Immediately I got on my knees to help her pick them up. That’s what common sense would tell you to do.
My son, on the other hand, stood there and watched. I shouted at him to pick up the sweets.
When he was done, his request blew me away. He wanted me to buy him hand sanitiser because he had to touch the floor and his hands were now dirty.
Seriously! We try so hard to instil good morals and values in our kids but we are also so guilty of giving them what they want at the drop of a hat.
Sure I got him a job as a grocery packer to learn responsibility and the value of money but have I been showing and teaching him the right values for life?
I have not been helping my children like I thought. Instead I have been enabling them and enabling is doing things or something that he or she is more than capable of doing for themselves.
Why do we do it? We do it out of guilt for what we can’t give them superficially, out of fear of being a bad parent but also for control because it gives us a sense of accomplishment.
I love this poem by CRA BUDD… “The more I do, the more you don’t. It just seems like you won’t. I feel like the harder I will try, the more you will just sit there and lie.
“The day has come to wake yourself up, to get out into the world and try your luck. I blame myself for spoiling you.
“At the time I thought it was the right thing to do. Now I see the more I help, the more you are incapable of dealing with the hands you are dealt.
“But you have to fly my child and find your way. There is so much to do in this day. The time is now and the place is here. You may not always have me to steer. I can’t always rescue you.”
It really is not what you do for your children but what you have made them do for themselves that will make them successful human beings.
Tash Reddy is an entrepreneur, radio and film producer, motivational writer and speaker and founder of Widowed South Africa