Jojo wakes up and gently slides his hand to the right of his bed. Like a habit, his hand goes and touches the steel glass sitting there with his morning tea. It was always already there. He never had to ask for any help.
Before he knew he was hungry, food was on the table. Before he could reach for a pen, someone had already placed it in his hand. His parents called it “good parenting.” His teachers called him “a good boy.” But beneath it all, Jojo was learning something quietly dangerous: that someone would always catch him before he fell.
He grew up in a two-bedroom apartment in Pune, the only child of two hardworking professionals. His mother, a school teacher, and his father, a manager in an IT job, had grown up with scarcity, so Jojo would have none of it. They gifted him security, structure, and every opportunity they could afford. Piano lessons, math tutors, coding bootcamps, and even a helper who packed his school bag every night, made sure that the shirts were ironed, and also that he had someone to be there at home when Jojo arrived.
Jojo, on the other hand, was very sweet, curious, and painfully gentle. But he rarely took any initiative.
“He’s smart, but he never brings his hand up for anything… He just waits to be told what to do,” one teacher said during a parent-teacher meeting in class 9.
His mom, who was present for it, completely dismissed it. While discussing it with his father, even he agreed, “He just needs time.”
But time doesn’t teach resilience only the life experiences of ups and downs do.
It wasn’t until Jojo turned 19 and moved away for college to Delhi that the protective bubble around him started to crack. He was put into a group for a project assignment. Each of them were given tasks to be done, but unfortunately, one of the important tasks assigned to Jojo was linked to another guy’s and his supposed friend missed his deadline with no real reason. When the previous day of the deadline came and Jojo called his friend, the guy didn’t pick up his call at all.
Jojo froze and didn’t know what to do. Instead of calling this out to the team or even stepping up to manage the task beforehand, he just waited for the day to arrive. He just waited, as the sense of urgency never came to his mind. He was numb.
Everything in front of him started to slow down.. the voices, the fan’s sound, the world around him was waiting for him to make a move. He understood that this was a panic attack. He completely got drained and sat on the floor. He didn’t know what else to do, but to shut down. The project failed, and he had to lie for the first time to his parents.
The spiral was slow and quiet. Missed classes, anxiety, sleepless nights. When his mid-semester grades dropped, his mother took a leave from work and came to stay with him for two weeks. She cooked and she cleaned for him. She emailed his professors for guidance. Things again started to pick up for Jojo, as his mom was here.
But she couldn’t do this for long, so she went back.
Jojo started to go back to what he was.
One afternoon, Jojo opened an email and saw that he had not been selected for the summer internship he had applied for, the one his father helped him write the cover letter for. He, even if in the back of his mind knew he wouldn’t be able to make it, hoped. Hoped that things would turn around for him.
He didn’t cry. He didn’t yell. He simply went quiet.
Later that night, he called his parents, and over a video call, with a numb, emotionless face, he asked:
“Why, Mommy, Pappa, why didn’t you let me fail at anything before? Why were you there always to cover for me even if there was no need at the moment? I am a failure now. Without your support, I feel I was always one but you just didn’t want me to see it.”
(Pauses. Tears break but he’s still calm.)
“You always told me I could do anything, but you never let me actually try.”
“You fixed everything before I even got the chance to learn what broken feels like.”
“I don’t know how to make decisions. I don’t even know how to handle a bad day. I wait for you to tell me it’s okay. I wait for you to fix it. Every time.”
(His voice breaks slightly.)
“Everyone else seems to know what to do when things go wrong. I just freeze. Like… I’m still waiting for someone to show up and tell me what to feel.”
“I’m not blaming you. I know you did everything out of love. But maybe… maybe you loved me too much to let me grow.”
(Silence …)
“I just wanted to be enough without you.”
That was the crack in the bubble.
Today, Jojo is still learning. He is still anxious about presentations. He still texts his mother when he doesn’t know how to cook or something else. But he no longer waits for a rescue.
Last month, he missed a train and didn’t call anyone. He just figured it out and booked another, ate samosas on the platform alone, and read a book.
“It all sounds small,” he tells his friends, smiling. “But I feel like I had climbed a mountain.”
His parents have changed too. They now give him space. It’s not easy, sometimes, his mother still packs him lunch boxes for travel, and his father hovers over his career choices but they are learning that love doesn’t mean wrapping someone up to keep them safe. Sometimes, it means letting them stumble, letting them break, and being there when they choose to rise.
Not all children raised in comfort grow strong. And not all pain is cruel. Some of it is necessary like friction that sharpens, or the wind that teaches a young sapling how to stand strong.
The events that led to me writing this story:
https://ajayan.substack.com/p/dont-pamper-your-children