When I was a kid, life was simpler. We had one or two races to run—maybe a 100-meter dash at school, or the occasional race to grab a front-row seat on a bus ride. But today’s kids?
They’re sprinting in every direction.
- A race in academics
- A race in sports
- A race in arts — music, dance, painting, coding… you name it.
Yesterday, I accompanied my daughter to her football zonals. I love watching her play, but what caught my attention wasn’t the game—it was the sidelines.
One parent was passionately talking about his daughter. She’s a topper in taekwondo, athletics, football, badminton. He wasn’t bragging but he was relentlessly calculating. He had recently moved her from her existing badminton club (where my daughter trains) to a “better” one, calling ours mediocre. You could see the pressure in his eyes and probably in his daughter’s shoulders too. He was pushing her to conquer all the milestones he missed in his own childhood.
Then there’s a friend of mine, a doting father. He’s got his daughter enrolled in every possible online class from Odo, Hindi, math, coding. He proudly told me she’s a Hindi pandit at 12. I casually mentioned, “Languages are beautiful, but if not practiced, they fade.” That offended him. He insists I’m being inefficient as a father because I don’t push my daughter like he does his.
Let me be clear—I’m not saying they’re wrong.
Their intentions come from love. They want to give their kids a better life, a stronger start, and more opportunities. But here’s my honest question:
Why make them run in every race?
Why can’t a child just choose one path—be it football, painting, dance, math—and go deep into it? Why must we chase breadth when they crave depth?
Childhood is not a battleground of unfinished parental dreams. It’s a playground for self-discovery.
We all want our children to succeed. But what if success isn’t standing on the winner’s podium in five fields at once? What if it’s simply being joyful, curious, and deeply good at one thing they actually love?
In a world full of rat races, I choose to let my daughter jog, walk, pause, even skip… as long as she enjoys the journey.
AnandNataraj 