An evening in my neighbor’s family. I and my husband met them after a long time. We had prepared some sweets as it was festival time. We took the sweets and went to their house. They received us well and expressed their happiness. We shared the sweets we took with us. Their child was also there playing in the living room. He was 1 year and six months then. The child was playing all round the house with his bike dashing the furniture in the house. The mom never paid attention to that. The dad was out for some grocery purchase.
The child’s name is Pranav. Pranav pulled the sweets kept over the table. All the sweets on the table fell down and the floor was quite dirty. So the sweets took a place in the dustbin. The mom was quiet and smiled at the baby and said, “This is what he does always. He throws everything down. He is grown up and shows anger as well”. Saying this she smiled. She also said, “He eats spicy things just like his dad. He does not eat fruits, salads. He always eats oily foods like his dad and he is really growing up”.
The child was playing with my husband. The mom offered some coffee for me. I drank it and was about to keep the cup on the tray. Pranav grabbed the cup from me and threw the left over coffee on my husband, smiled and left to pull the other things kept in the room. The mom again said, “See this is how he behaves”. She neither apologized nor did she ask her son to do so. She continued to hug the child and cajoled him. She said, “My child is growing”. The boy continued throwing things around the house.
Is this child really growing? What do we mean by growing? I am still puzzled to get an answer for this. Do we refer to the physical development as growth or is it beyond that? What does that ‘beyond’ mean? What are the signs of growing up?
