Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Shall I tell the truth to Rahul?

Bringing up new generation children is a tough task and bringing up sensitive children who ask lots of questions for which parents may not have the logical and appropriate answer is even tougher. Last week, I happened to meet Suresh Oberoi, the yester year veteran actor at a club. Rahul, my nine years old son became very friendly with him and bombarded him with questions for all the two hours that we all were together. Though Rahul has not seen any of his movies but based on his thinking and imagination , he found lots of things to talk about. The actor answered all his questions patiently and jokingly called Rahul a ‘BBC reporter’.
Suresh Oberoi is a very friendly gentleman and he was nice and polite with who ever he met there.
The actor invited Rahul to his house in Mumbai during Christmas holidays and asked him to stay with his family in his house. The issue is not whether to accept the invitation or not. The issue is Rahul has taken the invitation at its face value …really seriously.

Rahul: Was uncle really serious when he invited me to his house?
Me: Yes , he was ( I didn’t want to break his heart)

Rahul: Then why didn’t he give me his landline or mobile number ? Has he fooled me ? why did he fool me?
Me: Speechless

I have no answers to these questions. Celebrities like to be nice and friendly to people they meet especailly children. I do not want to tell him that the actor was just being friendly and nothing else I do not want to hurt my son.
I cannot also tell him that actor has invited him genuinely because that in all probablity is not true.
Rahul is a very sensitive boy; these days he remains in deep thoughts and after the first few questions hasn’t spoken on this subject. I know that some thoughts are going on his mind which he is not sharing. I don’t know how to give logical answer to his queries.
As a mother should have I stopped the actor from telling something to a child which he doesn’t mean even if it was just an act of being friendly and nice. I am confused. Shall the tell the truth to Rahul?

6 comments:

Neets said...

Please tell him the truth! Tell him that this is how the real world works. People, famous or not, don't always mean what they say and a smart person has to learn to tell the differnce and act accordingly. Sooner he learns how the world operates, better off he will be at dealing with realites when he grows up.

Kaavya said...

Ermmmm... Well... Its a tough call actually... I feel you should tell him... Hey mebbe you should ask the elder one tell him, you know the casual kool way these teenagers talk... Mebbe Rahul will understand him better :)

Its tough being a mom I guess :(

Manju G said...

I think you and your son should show up at his House during christmaa..just kidding. Please tell him the truth.

Prats said...

Awww...thats a tough confusion the lil one has to bear on his head...
Maybe you should tell him lightly about the workings of these actors...
Give him a nice big hug from me...

Unknown said...

I like the topic very much. Indeed, it's a challange to share the truth with a little kid. I agree that a brother kind of person should tell the truth to Rahul casually!

Sujata Rajpal said...

Thanks you all for your suggestions. I spoke to him along with my older one tks Kavya and Supantha. I think speaking truth always helps and children are sensible to understand. He did understand that everything cannot be taken at the face value , that's not how the real world works and Prats ... i did give him a hug from your side.