18 Why parenting and mentoring are so tough to do

As anybody who has ever been a parent, or even been in a position of mentor, will know, these are among the toughest things to do in life. Barring a few cases where the mentee is totally attuned to the mentor, which perhaps obtains only in fanatics’ training camps, the fact is that the individual is always questioning and questing. No amount of telling is going to convince them, unless they convince themselves.

Although  our telling is not going to change them, we still have to do the telling. This is the source of the mentor’s tension and frustration. If we don’t tell, it will all come out much, much, later, and probably not in front of us. If we do tell, it is apt to fall on deaf ears or closed minds. Indeed, classical musicians, ustads, if yore would refuse to take on a student until they were convinced of their devotion and strength of aspiration. In some cases, the student would have to wait at the master’s gate for months; in others, he would be admitted, but made to fetch the water and light the fires for years before starting the actual teaching. The student obviously would have his own ideas, which would challenge the master’s authority; indeed, they had a rule that the student would not perform on a stage, as long as the teacher was around! Teaching a performing art like music is probably even more difficult than mentoring for life skills, as the teacher has to sit through the pain of tortured swara (note) and laya (tempo).

It’s difficult because teaching, or mentoring, or parenting requires constant tongue-biting, choking down our immediate reactions, and letting the student learn from their own practice and self-criticism. You have to put a ‘stone on your heart’, as the Hindi expression goes, when dealing with the learner’s clumsy attempts. In spite of all this, in the end, nothing may come of it all. As Khalil Gibran said, you have to treat your children (and, by extension, your mentees!) as guests, and your guests as your children. That is, it’s best not to expect that those you are trying to teach, or bring up, will turn out as you wish, or even that they will use your inputs the way you, as teacher, would expect. They are no longer your property, either your ideas, or your mentees, once you have given your inputs or given expression to your ideas. They will both develop the way they are fated to, outside your sphere of control.