By Ahmet Abdulaziz …..
Family, having children, raising a family, is the pivot round which the lives of most of us revolves. We all love children, not only our own, but of others too.
But a time comes when parents, like me, start thinking that the children when they were just babies were more easily manageable as compared to the grown up ones. Well the answer to this question is basically related to differing social 
norms and feelings and understandings of individuals too. But strictly limiting this question to the local Cypriot society, where even grown up children too remain attached one way or another with their parents, it is difficult to answer.
As a parent of grown up children who are in their twenties and are going to be married one after another in a short period of time, I would definitely say that it was far more easy for us to deal with the same children when they were small babies.
With the babies, usually parents face two important problems. One is they usually do not like to eat when the parents want them to eat. Secondly, they do not want to sleep when their parents want them to sleep, and of course do not wake up when their parents want them to be awake. Besides these two important problems, other problems I think are not too big to be mentioned.
From the point of view of the parents, it was always easy for them to take young babies anywhere you want to and at anytime. Just pack them up, and take them to the picnic or to any other place. 
They may sleep, they may cry, they may create problems while eating, even when taken out of home. But this is what they usually do at home too, so there is nothing new to suffer by the parents when they take out the children out.
When the children grow up a little more, start walking, talking and roaming around, the problems increase. Of course the parents now have to run after them all the time. The parents have to answer all the questions, however stupid the questions and the answers may be but they do have spare time to play games with them. They still create problems when asked to eat or not to eat something particular. The children still create problem with their studies, homework, computers etc etc.
Dealing with all this, as above, was still easier, as compared to what the parents find themselves having to deal with when the same children grows up.
The biggest problem with grown up children is that you can argue with them. You cannot stop them doing something which you consider wrong. You cannot make them go the way you want them to go. Above all, as parents, we have to accept their friends, however unacceptable they are to us, but we have to accept them. As parents we are supposed to be helpful to them, in financial or other matters. As parents we need not to expect much from them in return.
Then in the end, as parents, we are supposed to accept the girls/boys that they choose as their spouses.
Let me know if there are friends who say that small babies are a problem for them as parents.
