how can your own kids be a waste of your time?

I remember a few years ago, when my elder daughter was starting school, I met with one of her teachers. She had found out that I had a PhD, and asked, as an ice-breaker of sorts, what I did. When I replied that I stayed at home to look after my kids, she was literally taken aback, and said," my dear girl, you are wasting your talent!"

Now it was my turn to be taken aback. Why were my kids considered less worthy of my time and attention than, say, decoding a gene or studying its expression? I had always thought that, if anything, my decision to stay home for my kids signalled how important I thought they were.

In a society like ours, where one's value is judged by how much money you make, what job you hold, which district you live in, what kind of car you drive, or even what kind of bag you carry, my husband and I wanted to bring up our children differently -- we wanted our kids to be educated deliberately, to be able to appreciate culture and history, to understand the workings of the natural world with a sense of wonderment, and to become persons of integrity and nobility. And unfortunately we can't rely on holiday camps or enrichment classes, however expensive they may be, to imbue children with all that.

My kids may not be the smartest in their school or class -- I have, unfortunately, yet to be given the privilege of being invited to the year-end prize-giving ceremony. Some people may take that as an indictment of my performance. (I suppose it is a fair key performance indicator.) But I am proud of the consideration they show to their classmates, the way they try to reason with instead of reacting to classmates' taunts and other childish forms of bullying, and their enthusiasm for learning about the world around them.

One of my proudest moments as a parent was when we visited the site of ancient Olympia, in Greece. The guide stopped at a painting of the statue of Olympian Zeus, and explained that even though it was long gone, the concept of Zeus seated on his throne, being represented as a regal being, was the inspiration for many Renaissance artists in their representation of God and Jesus, more than a thousand years later. When she asked if anyone could see the parallels, my nine-year-old whispered to me, "Jesus in Michelangelo's Last Judgment !" It was as if there was a spark of adult understanding and revelation in her eyes, mixed with childish glee at being able to provide an answer. these are the moments I shall think back upon, the next time somebody says I'm wasting my time at

home with my kids.