A Trustworthy Parent

My daughter once went over to her grandparents for the Deepawali holidays. She took 5 days extra leave than the usual leaves granted. This was when she was in class two at 7 years of age.

When she returned, she was taken with other kids for a hoopla drill practice to the playground around 12 noon. Since other kids were practising for the last 4 days they were well-versed with the sequence of the sports day drill. But having missed school, my daughter clumsily imitated others, maybe missing some steps. This made her class teacher so angry that with her sharp nails she pinched my daughter’s face so hard that she developed a big scratch and an allergy around it!

When she came back home, she cried of the burning and pain around her round sweet red tomato face. I soothed her by applying an ointment and making her take a Crocin tablet for pain relief. But she kept saying, if you love me you should come with me to school and scold the teacher for scratching my face for no fault of mine.

When she went off to bed, I discussed this with her father. He said if now we fight with the teacher, she’ll always think a teacher can’t discipline her. Since he is from a convent, he didn’t find the scratch too insensitive. But my motherly instincts said if I break the confidence of my child now to not be her protector, she’ll always have trust issues.

So the next day, I went with her to school and dropped her off in the concerned teacher’s class, meaningfully looking at my daughter’s face. But didn’t utter a word to the teacher. The teacher understood my displeasure, she came to me and said, “Sorry ma’am! Yesterday, in anger, I was rough with your child, I will ensure it is not repeated. I waved goodbye to my daughter seeing a sparkle in my daughter’s eyes who had won my trust and was happy to be given an Eclairs toffee and monitorship for the whole day by the same teacher!

Have your parents stood by you against someone ever? How did you feel?