Scissors are dangerous in the hands of kids, but not in the way you think

A few years ago, I was enjoying some lighthearted conversations with a women acquaintances over dinner.  When we first sat down at the table, conversation was limited to business, musical events, and latest shopping sales. As we twirled the wine glasses and picked on soft, juicy kebabs, conversation shifted to children. One of the women was a blogger, like me, so I hung on to each word that she said ( For some reason,  I have this perception that people who blog are always more clear in their heads.)

She had two daughters, one of whom had just entered her teens. Her pain was, therefore, the strongest and just waiting to flow in front of the right audience. I guess, she found that audience in me. She said with an exasperated sigh,”Shilpa, no matter what I tell you, nothing will prepare you for these years! They are simply terrible!” In my mind, I discounted her exasperation! I had just celebrated the first birthday of my son. I was pretty sure nothing could be more stressful than bringing up an infant. Nonetheless, I decided, there was no harm in hearing her out. If nothing else, she would feel a little better after shedding part of her stress.

She went on narrating stories about rebellion, dropping grades, tantrums and mood swings. At one point, during the discourse, she paused, took a deep breath and said, “Shilpa, if there is one tip that I can share with you, it will be, “Till you have children at home, never ever buy a scissor for your house,! Scissors are your worst enemy!” I nodded my head, as if in complete agreement. But internally, I again wondered how could that be. Each day, I encouraged Yog (one year old at that time) to cut a variety of things using a scissor. It was one way of building his fine motor skills.

Sigh! If only I knew!

I spent the last weekend cleaning up my cupboard. Thanks to the extra long time I took to get to it, it was extremely cluttered. I had even forgotten about some clothes that I had purchased in the past. Some of them had moved into dark corners of the white shelves. I literally had to dump out everything on to the bed; sort, organize and then put it back into the right shelf. In this process, I came across a nice black dupatta my mother had gifted me some time back. Ummmm! Nice! I found it again! Even though I had not worn it even once till now, it was special, because my Mom had given it to me. I opened and draped it over me to soak in the feel. It was then I noticed, a big circular hole, somewhere in the lower side. I was shocked. I was pretty sure, we did not have rats in the house. Then who could it be, to have done such damage?

I quickly checked a few other dupattas to see if the rest of them were fine. My worst fears were confirmed. Someone had been systematically running through my fine collection of dupattas and taking out pieces of fabric. Hang on! Didn’t I see this pink piece of missing fabric as a cape for the barbie? Oh!  And this is where the fine lace originated from, for creating the Rakhi for my nephew based in Delhi.

Argh! I was furious at myself to have ignored the signs for so long! I should have thrown out all the scissors when my daughter had first chopped her front hair, on her own, months ago. I had then laughed it out and fooled myself into believing that scissors could do no more harm. I had thought, the worst was over. What more could possibly go wrong?

For all those naive parents reading this today, please learn from my experience. Please do not fool yourself, like I did. Scissors are an extremely  dangerous tool. Please keep them under strict supervision at all time.

P.S. An ulterior motive of writing this blog is to communicate to my Mom the fate of the beautiful black dupatta. God knows, I don’t have the heart to tell this to her in person.