My Friday night tuition yesterday started with my lil boy asking me "Is God a punishing God? I said , God is a loving God. He loves everyone and He wants us to love everyone too. He does not punish". Then my boy asked me why then my teacher scold me? I asked him back did you follow what your teacher and your mom and I ask you to do...he said no...so told him God can't be in front of you to tell you what to do, so He sent your teacher, mom and me to tell you what is right and what is wrong. He kept quiet and went about doing his thing.
A while later he asked me, last week I asked you what is God made off! I was oh my, he remembered the question and I did not prepare an answer for that....But at that moment, it came to me and I told him, well God is made of LOVE and that is why we have a loving God! He said ok and went about sticking something on the book. After a while, I asked him, you understand why God is a loving God right? He said yes, I asked how? He said God created you! My heart just skipped a bit. I wanted to cry that moment but I held back my tears...my thoughts were at that moment, Krishna, You are truly great.
Well, today's post is about how my kids have left footprints in my life.
I started teaching when I was 24 years old. Young, very young and was learning how to teach. I was teaching in the evening where my students were mostly much much older than me and my usual day classes they students were more or less around my age. It was in the first year of teaching I met this student. J. He was younger to me by 3 years, has long hair which he ties in a pony tail and he just loves to chat with me. This is the guy who will come to the staffroom and sit next to me and arrange my table, he was a bit of an OCD! His birthday was 2 days before mine and that was when he looked at my eyes and said "so near yet so far". He was the first guy who sang a song for me....and yes, I was advised by my then Vice Principal not to be too close with the students!! And that was the first time I told myself to set a boundary with my kids....
Over the years, I had brief encounters where girls will give me a hug or will start opening up and cry and all I do is hold them. As for the boys, I had a couple of them touching my saree or touching my bangles when they are in my class. I didn't think it was weird, just funny, coz most of the kids, most of them Chinese, have not been close to any Indian lady to dare to touch her saree.
Last week, in class, one of my kid said "you know right I love you so much". I looked at him and said that is really sweet and thank you. He said that coz he wanted to have his test paper back to make corrections! Then he went on to ask if I have a daughter 😃. I totally cracked up at that moment, I told him, if I have a daughter, I don't mind her dating him. He said but I am Chinese, I told him I am ok with any race/religion... I was thinking then, 25 years of teaching, nothing changed when it comes to boundaries!
Well, now with my two little boys, I took them for a movie two weeks back and I told them in the car, we cannot be running in the mall, you need to hold my hand and we shall have a good time. They were really cute, once we got down the car, both held my hand on each side. I did get people looking at me, two cute Chinese boys holding my hand and happily chatting away! These boys are breaking all the rules I have set for boundaries. They ask me anything and everything they want, they touch my face, pull my blouse to look at my tattoo. take out their shirt asking me to put lotion for them...I honestly don't know what to say but what I saw was my wall on boundaries crumbling down with these boys.
Last night my lil boy gave me a side hug when he came back after washing his hands after all the glue he was using! I melted.... So after lesson, I called him and said give me a good night hug, he came readily and just hugged me. He really made my day....to heck with boundaries!!!
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