When Weaning Becomes Tough; When Do You Let Go?

My late mum used to lament that she had to breastfeed me as a child, till I was 2 years old – teeth and all. But I was spared when my two daughters were born, because the maternity clinic where my elder one was born, trained her on bottle from the first time she was started on milk. When the second one was born, I had lactating issues, so again, that breastfeeding thingy didn’t quite happen. So, the issue of weaning was not so huge.

Then came the phase when the kids need to be weaned from milk to solid foods. It was a walk in the park, trust me, because, Asian parents, especially Indians, love spoiling their children with adult food from the moment the child is able to taste something. So, in went KFC’s mashed potatoes, gravy and all, small bites of baked chicken wings, bread soaked in milk; the list could go on. More adult food than baby food. Weaning was no more a phase in the child’s life as adulthood seem to descend faster than expected.

The harder weaning would be to let your child go to kindy or school at the age of 5 or 7 (based on the schooling system in Malaysia). After providing a very stable and safe environment at home, a parent can’t but worry about how the child would fare among peers in a different environment. My elder daughter did not have much issues joining kindergarten because each day she returned to her grandma’s house after school. My late ex mother-in-law would be home waiting for her when her kindy bus arrived. I worked in peace at the office.  But it was not the same with my second daughter. She was born 10 years later after her sister, by which time the in laws’ safety net was no longer there because many grand kids were born by then and the same late ex mother-in-law had her hands full.

I had to drop my daughter at the kindy early in the morning and place trust on the babysitter to take care of her after kindy hours till I reached home to pick her up from the babysitter’s place. It was definitely not a walk in the park. As a mother I worried more than my ex-hubby (I was still married to him then), but one has to earn to put food on the table. So, I had to work and worry at the same time.  However, that experience helped with the transition to school, from primary till she finished high school in 2017. Then came the toughest weaning.

College. That was the toughest. It’s almost like the real world out there. All kinds of people, though mostly fellow students, nothing stopped the public from accessing college students. Not to mention – drinking, smoking weed, doing drugs, late nights out, wild parties, orgys, one-night stands and these days – fu-bus. Tell me which mother would not worry. The biggest challenge was when the children themselves do not tell parents what they were facing in college. I know of some students who became homeless for some reason or other and had to sleep on couches and library benches, till life took a turn for the better. Others who went into  relationships only to realise that the guy had returned to homeland and is about to get married to a girl selected by the family. Heartbreakville. But parents did not know.

Makes no different when they have to step into the actual world of adulthood. Getting a job, marriage, fathering/mothering a child, accumulating successes, wealth, facing hardships, climbing over failures – that’s actual life. And children, too will have to face them, while we parents watch from afar.

But as parents we need to let go, right? As tough as it gets? We let go with a prayer that God and all angels will take care of our children, no matter where they are, regardless which land hosts them, regardless how tough life is going to be, with a believe that wherever they are, some good soul will be there for them. And, yes, there are good souls world over, we just need to pray and leave it all in hands of the Supreme for He is One Who Knows All.

My second daughter, who lives 50 kms away, told me she fainted at the mall yesterday and all I could say was `take care, you are an adult now’.