Dreads and Disappointments

I dream of one day having a niece/ nephew who is a disappointment to his/ her parents.

This came from a conversation I had with my mom, where she was telling me about the antics of my littlest cousin, now two and starved for attention. Apparently, the child has taken to dancing whenever adults are around to admire her, um, mad skillz. Now this isn't bad in itself, except that she likes imitating the sexy dancing girls on Wowowee. Eeek!

There's a whole branch of ouer family that's like that. Coincidentally, they're also the branch that liked to make fun of my reading too much growing up. Not everyone in that branch is like thatm of course, but there are a lot.

Which brings us back to my wish: Given the circumstances, I know it's too much to ask for all of them, so I'll be content with just one niece/ nephew who is a disappointment to his her parents because s/he will want to read voraciously, study hard, not place too much importance on relationships until it's the right time to do so, live for his/ her passion and see the world through enlightened eyes. If I'm lucky, I'll get an activist, an environmentalist or an academic. I wouldn't mind an artist or an entrepreneur either.

I doubt I'm ever getting one, but in the off chance that I do, well, you know your Auntie will support you in whatever you do.

I'm only asking for one. Is that too much?

And for my littlest cousin, whose current dream is to dance half-naked on national TV, all I can do is pray for her and hope that she moves on to better, more worthwhile things. She is just a kid after all.