Sometimes I wonder if I would be able to cope if I were a kid or teenager today. This because as parent to a teenager, I have a close view of the predicament that she has to live today. An average teenager today is far more mature and worldly-wise than my generation was in our early twenties. (S)He knows that the world is a tough place, that there are practically no unconditional friendships, that your bank-balance defines the kind of esteem that you are likely to enjoy.
As parents, we pressurize them into ‘knowing’ their minds as early as in their early teens, about where they would want to go in life, what career they would want to pursue. We are paranoid about how everybody else in their peer group might be already ahead in the rat-race, forgetting that these are not rats we are talking about, these are still mice. We choose to ignore the fact that these tender minds are not ready to take on the pressure. As a result, rising rates of addictions, depressions, suicides amongst teenagers.
Take hobbies like sports and music. Even if there is a hint of talent in a kid, instead of allowing it to flower on its own, parents like us run helter-skelter to get them the best ‘coaching’ that money can buy, to set time-tables in a day wherein these ‘talents’ can be ‘honed’ by practice.. If you think sympathetically, the greatest favor that we as parents could do to these kids would be to leave them alone, to explore their passion on their own and to ask us for help if and when they do.
We only need to take one look at the ‘Reality Shows’ on television to understand the point that I am trying to make here. Kids with talent for this or that art are fiercely pitted against each other; they compete and try to ‘win’ so that their pathetic parents can feel good. They sing and dance, act out situations and emotions that are adult in essence, which they are too young to feel or understand. The entire exercise is hideous but we continue nonetheless, episode after episode, sponsors pouring money in and squeezing even more money out of the popularity of these shows.
Take hobbies like sports and music. Even if there is a hint of talent in a kid, instead of allowing it to flower on its own, parents like us run helter-skelter to get them the best ‘coaching’ that money can buy, to set time-tables in a day wherein these ‘talents’ can be ‘honed’ by practice.. If you think sympathetically, the greatest favor that we as parents could do to these kids would be to leave them alone, to explore their passion on their own and to ask us for help if and when they do.
We only need to take one look at the ‘Reality Shows’ on television to understand the point that I am trying to make here. Kids with talent for this or that art are fiercely pitted against each other; they compete and try to ‘win’ so that their pathetic parents can feel good. They sing and dance, act out situations and emotions that are adult in essence, which they are too young to feel or understand. The entire exercise is hideous but we continue nonetheless, episode after episode, sponsors pouring money in and squeezing even more money out of the popularity of these shows.In our times, the notion of falling in love used to be sweet and romantic, full of mystery and gossip. But no longer.
Our kids are aware that eventually they have to find a life partner. Only, for them, the romantic notion of love has been replaced by a hardcore practical one of, “Of course I love you, till I find someone better”, or, “Now that you are Rich, let’s fall in love” [quotation marks indicate that these are titles of two novels so popular amongst today’s teens that they are national bestsellers!]. Where does such cynicism come from? Could it be from their observation of their parents' lives and equations?
All this only leads me to ponder that perhaps it is time that we take a relook at parenting styles and step back a little, let children be children, let them make their mistakes and learn from them, allow them the space to become better human beings first before courting success at all cost.
