Just as I was sitting in my corner, a little edged out space near the water tank on my terrace, I happened to have a look at the intricacies of the life.

I indulged myself into the early morning warmth of ginger lemon water and let my mind slip into the nitty gritty of life as is to be. There was a mellow tune around of Sunday morning, birds chirping, people leaving for market and a rather slow morning air of a weekend holiday. Being mindful about my surroundings, I happen to notice the old couple, uncle sitting in the porch, aunty sweeping the courtyard and responding to the curious questions of their grandchild. I could smell the chirpiness in the air that this grandchild of theirs was bringing it to their home.

Just then as I was observing the scene, a very common and a rather important thought stirred my mind. To have kids or to not? Or more specifically, is it okay for the parents and in-laws to expect from their children to provide them with grandkids?

As the warmth from the Sun eased my aching muscles from the weeklong newly restored gym routine, my mind wandered into the dimensions of understanding from the parents’ point of view.

Whenever these conversations happen, our immediate self-righteous and defensive brain says, ‘this is our life and decision should be ours (the couple)’. No matter what, in the end that holds the ultimate truth, and it should be, has to be, the decision of childbearing couple.

Having said that, let’s just take a step back. Not challenging your decision here, you hold the supreme key but perhaps this introspection will help you calm your nerves, the next time when situations arise.

When we feel prepared for the marriage and we think of marrying someone, we feel it should be absolutely our call because it’s our life at stake here. We get married (hopefully by our choice, if freedom was not granted for marriage, it will not be granted for the decision of having kids as well) and a new chapter as a spouse begins in our life. Then we, as a couple, decides on having kids or not. Let’s just say, the decision was affirmative and now we have kids, a new chapter of our life starts again, this time as a parent. We feel responsible for our kids and do the best for them. Now the kids are married, and we are knowingly/unknowingly ready for the next phase of our lives, as a grandparent.

The thing to introspect here is the ‘feeling’. We ‘felt‘ ready for marriage, we ‘felt‘ ready for being a parent, may be, when time comes, we will ‘feel‘ ready for being a grandparent as well? could this be one of those phases of life that we just feel ready for/ desired for?

There could be a chance that this desire might be hormone triggered? Who knows, we might feel the same at their age? The circles of lives are viciously complicated and intermingled. And there are few things, rather ‘feelings’ that cannot be explained through logics, just like you cannot apply a logic to the feeling of love. So, for now, let it be. Give a room to breathe for yourself and your parents and in-laws and who so-ever ‘grand’-relative for their desire might be triggered as a chain of life which we might be too young to understand as of now. Bottom line – it is your decision but perhaps we can handle it more calmly if we know from where both sides are coming from 🙂

Much love, from an ancient soul. X