What matters most to your parents is not what you expect
A Diwali gift for my mother, and what it taught me about the thing seniors value most: the freedom to make their own decisions.
What is the most important thing for the seniors in our life? The people playing the second innings of their life, whose working-for-money phase is complete? I used to think it was "chilling out" and "doing what I want to do". It couldn't have been further from the truth in the case of my own mother.
This Diwali, we insisted on getting a new car for her. She would learn to drive it at a driving school and then drive it around in the aviator glasses that I always thought would look cool on her.
It turns out what she wanted was the freedom to choose. Not having to learn the hoops all over again, or at least doing it at her own pace and in her own time. So it was with great resistance and reservations that we started hunting for a two-wheeler for her. It was she who researched which vehicle would be the most comfortable for an ailing back, and she who came up with the model she wanted.
We decided to buy it for her on her birthday, and the day she got the delivery, the expression on her face was worth all the money and effort we had put in. It was then that I realized what matters to her the most.
More than the creature comforts of a new car, the relative safety of a four-wheeler and even the pride of driving herself around, what mattered to her most was simply the experience of being important enough to make her own decisions, and of living the way she wanted, on her terms.
This Diwali, I pledge to have her experience this feeling over and over again: of being in control of her life. Because that is what matters most to her.