I remembered When Reema was small, I used to bestow upon her everything in surplus numbers or quantity without her asking for anything, whether it be toys, dresses, food, or anything. She broke her one toy, and ten new ones were bought for her the same day by me. She loved to wear fancy dresses and was adamant about not wearing the same dress again for the party from very early childhood, and I did not mind fulfilling her this demand. She used to eat little, but the table should be loaded with all her favorite foods. I knew she was doing extreme things, but I had hoped she would be all right after growing up. Several times, Ravi used to be sad to see all these things in his home, and he tried to restrain me and give me some sense,
"What is the point of buying her toys and all and blowing the money? Why do you not try to develop the habit of eating everything especially healthy food in her rather than encouraging her to be picky? "
But I did not give ear to his words seriously. But later on, I realised that she could not come to know what she needed and valued, and it had gotten too late. Because of that, she began to consider that everything was available in ample supply and she could not come to know that being privileged did not mean being ignorant and ungrateful for the available of the things.
Opposite to me ,Ravi did not forget to take her to the orphanage and make her spend some time with the children of that place so that she could learn how the others were bound to lead miserable lives and how happy they were when they got anything, even if it was not of their choice. I could witness visiting orphanages brought some change. No more did she break the toys in a fit of anger or throw them away if she did not like to play with them. Instead, she donated them on her visit to the orphanage, and, like-wise, her dresses. But she did not think of cut off her demand. But yes, she did not demand that I prepare plenty of things and serve her. She told me prior to what she wanted to eat. After some time, he stopped taking her there because the warden complained that she was having a bad influence on the kids at that place and was bullying the children there. Ravi tried to stop her, but I stopped him to show strictness to her.
At the same time, I had made her remarkably soft and sensitive. I literally found it an arduous job to stop my tears when she was injected. And I rushed to the doctor immediately if she ran a fever after that. It was not that I was unaware that she would get a fever after the injection. I had made her so delicate that even a little exposure to the sun and water caused her fever or cold and I got totally panicked. Without swallowing her medicine, I could not think that her cold and cough would subside and go away .No matter how hard doctor and Ravi tried to convince me that I was overreacting but my restless did not reduce. Likewise, I could not force her to eat anything if she declined once; otherwise, she puked the whole stuff at once. And so, she became nosy about everything.
I realised that Reema had not developed the habit of keeping things in their place after using them. Because of that plenty of time her things go missing and I had had to buy for her another one.Plus, the worst thing was that she did not feel sorry a bit if she lost the thing. Somewhere in her mind, this thing had instilled that this was not her job to take care of my things. The domestic staff or I handled her kind of stuff at home, so she became more careless toward them. She was expecting the same treatment she would receive in school as well. She did not bother to keep her things organised and safe, like other children of her class or age. Almost every day, she lost her school stationery items, and I had to give her the new ones. I could see that, by and by, her negligence was increasing and she was not ready to take the responsibility a bit.
When I approached the teacher, I learned that she was not only careless but also slothful. Besides, she did not consider it necessary to put her lunchbox inside the bag after having lunch, even if she was reminded frequently by the teachers. And finally, the teachers had to do the work on her behalf. Likewise, she left the pencil on the table instead of keeping it inside the school bag. It had become her daily story. Her class teacher had tried to make her understand several times how she would write if she lost her pencil there every day. But her crisp reply,
"My father has plenty of money. No matter she will be bought the new one."
They became speechless. She had instilled into her mind that her father had a deep pocket and she would get the new one if she lost the old one. And she said the same thing among her friends too, that her parents were loaded and they would not mind buying her another one.
I was literally shocked to hear all these awful things about her from her teacher. Because I did not remember ever talking to her about such sorts of things, and there was no question that Ravi would have talked to her about money and all that with her. I did not get how she was learning to say such awful things then or who was behind her teaching her such awful things, after all. But I remained quiet before the teacher at that moment. I knew there was no point in giving any explanation to the teacher on her behalf. She was not going to believe me. And I could not deny that I was also making some blunders while bringing her up.
I could see the teacher was speaking of her all the demerits in a very sugar coated manner. It was not enough. I was sent to her counsellor thereafter. There, I learned some more unfortunate things about my daughters, which was hard for me to imagine that a girl of four years or older could also speak. Reema did not take her teachers seriously. She did not understand why it was important to do the classwork in the class and disturbed the others as well. Even though she picked the fight quickly with them and did their bullying enough. I was not getting it at all. How do I make Reema understand that her behavior with others was inappropriate? I literally did not count on the teacher or counsellor if they did not show me the CCTV camera and records to prove their statements on my insist.
Sorry to say this, but it just did not pop into my mind that my daughter was capable enough to give troublesome time to domestic staff under my nose only. I couldn't figure out how or when she developed that dreadful habit. I did not remember either Ravi or me having atrociously talked to any of them. But her behavior was not acceptable. She did not pay respect to them at all when we were out of sight. No doubt, before us, she pretended to be a very different person, beyond our imagination, especially mine.
My daughter not only proved me wrong but also raised a big question mark about my upbringing. I always thought she would be a very nice and decent girl until I found out about all her wrongdoings one after one. It was also not an easy task to get her game back as well. First, as I had witnessed, she was very nice to all of the staff and treated them with all due respect. But she wasn't the same girl when her father and I weren't there. She misbehaved them and talked to them rudely . Second, she had fun spoiling their work and increasing their tasks. Like by purposefully ruining the food by adding extra salt or chilies when they were not around. She soiled her clothes by rolling in mud or smearing paint on them. She frequently climbed on the bed in her filthy shoes and burned the clothes in order to get them scolded. Her entire time revolved around giving them a tough time and getting pleasure out of it as a sadist.