What If I Crawl?

We all knowingly or unknowingly imitate others. For example, we copy the clothes we see others wearing, we imitate our neighbours to maintain our status in the locality, and we want to buy the latest mobile just because our friends have bought it. Such copycat behaviours can be infectious. Read on to find out why it is important to intelligently use our sense of discrimination between right and wrong while managing pressure from peers and media.

Karishma was a sweet 6-year-old girl. Last Sunday, she celebrated her little sister Kareena’s birthday. Karishma loved Kareena and got along well with her, but sometimes she felt that her parents loved Kareena more. They were always busy with her and gave her all their attention. Karishma often felt that she was being ignored.

Gradually she began to believe that now her parents loved only Kareena. Before Kareena was born, they used to really love her. Their affection towards her was not the same as it used to be. She felt a strange kind of loneliness in her own home. Her mother was always busy with Kareena, as if she didn’t even exist. All the time mother was busy doing one thing or another for Kareena like feeding her or changing her clothes. Her parents played silly games with Kareena. They never played with Karishma anymore. All these things made Karishma very sad and depressed. She wanted to win back her parents love, but didn’t know how.

She observed that Kareena would always do silly things like

crawl around or make funny faces. Whenever Kareena did something of this sort, her parents would say how cute she was and hugged and kissed her. So she decided that she would also behave like Kareena to grab their attention.

First she started by small things like making faces like Kareena. When that went unnoticed by her parents, she thought that it was time for drastic measures. She started imitating everything that Kareena did. She started throwing childish tantrums, crying when she was hungry and even started to babble like Kareena.

When her mother noticed all these changes, she got a bit concerned. And as they were taking dinner, Kareena spilled some milk out of her mouth. Seeing this, Karishma also spilled her juice out of her mouth. Her mother got angry. She wanted to scold her, but decided that she would first talk to her husband about all this.

After dinner as all of them were getting ready to go to sleep, Kareena wet her pants. Her parents started running around to get her nappy and baby powder. Then both her father and mother started to change it. Seeing this Karishma also wetted her pants. Her parents thought that she was ill. They decided to take her to the doctor the next day.

Next morning as they were going down for breakfast, Kareena started crawling. Karishma also started crawling. Immediately her mother realized that Karishma was not ill. She understood what Karishma had been going through. She got tears in her eyes and was going to hug her when her husband stopped her and said, “No, first we should explain her that what she has been thinking is wrong. If you hug her now she will believe that this is the way to get attention. Then she may continue her babyish behaviour. Let me talk to her first.”

He sat beside Karishma and said, “Dear! You are very intelligent, and normally you take right decisions. But if you think that we love Kareena more than we love you. You are wrong. We love both of you equally as both of you are our little angels. We treated you the same way when you were little. You even got better treatment than Kareena as at that time we had to take care of only you. Now we have to take care of you and Kareena both. You always got new toys when you were little but Kareena got some of your old toys. You were our first child and we were very devoted to you. Even now we love you as much as we ever did. We give more attention to Kareena because she is little and she needs it. You are my grown up princess. You are a good girl who knows how to take care of herself. Now stop being silly and start acting your age. Show mummy and daddy what a good girl you are. Be a responsible sister so that by watching you Kareena also learns how she is supposed to behave when she grows up.”

Trying to mask her embarrassment, Karishma stammered, “Sorry. I promise to be a good girl.”

Her mother said, “Take it lightly. We all behave like copycats sometimes in our life. Even I started smoking when I was 19 copying other girls. As smoking is habit-forming, now you see my breathing and other health problems. I am still suffering because of that copycat behaviour.”

Her father said, “When I was in 10th grade, I bought a gun to teach a school bully a lesson in his own language. But fortunately, my mom caught my gun before I could do anything. I was saved. But that bully was not so lucky. Now he is in jail. He must be regretting his childish behaviour in the school.”

He then hugged her and her mother also came and kissed the top of her head. Kareena also got up and sat in her lap.

Karishma realized her mistake and started laughing at her foolishness. She thanked God for giving her such lovely parents and such a lovely sister.

~ Priya Sarin / www.priyasarin.com