Parents’ cyber blues

And our own peculiar setting

Look at the child and you can tell who her/his parents are. In a third world country, we cannot blame that majority of parents who take the future of their children as a long term investment, but that investment must not be made in a way that the child would live unduly subdued for the rest of the her/his life, acting as a minor

“Do not drink water after a hot meal! Don’t you know when water is poured over hot food in the stomach, it turns into steam which causes gas, hence, burps and farts?” Well, I never knew that.

“You know he was so handsome that some evil eye took its toll on him. He got blood cancer, and you won’t believe he withered within days!” Well, that was unexpected!

Parents have always taught us many things, not from experience, but just because they like to talk. If scientific revolution was not enough to mar them, here comes the age of technology with all that could baffle this old, decaying generation.

In the global village, our parents are the greatest disaster, since they understand village but not the one laden with fiber optic cables. Because we never made any contribution in the advancement of technology, and what gadgets we have are merely imported from the west, their inability to learn the thingy or to digest those who know how to do so is pitiable. They belong to an age when ideas were the chief import, be it socialism or democracy. Ideas are imported in books; books are conveniently read; words are easily understood; ideas are readily adopted or rejected. A person belonging to the age of wisdom/reason could hardly keep pace with the quick sand of cyber space.

Goodness in parents is a problem for they do not see the evil encrypted in their own children. Bad-temper is a problem for it enervates the prodigy. Over-confidence for it gives absolute authority to the prodigal. Frustration for it cuts off the supply of fresh air. Orthodoxy for it shuns brain waves. Superiority complex for it exalts in breeding inferiority complex. Inferiority complex for it snubs mindlessly. To improve the younger generation, we would have to begin with the older generation. Perhaps genes are not the only thing that we inherit. Whatever are the follies of the ancestry are the faults of the line of descent.

We often forget, subdued by reverence, that our parents are also human beings and as fallible as any of us. Since we are never told that (forgetting is out of question), we never realise that. Their authority got misplaced somewhere amidst the booming technology, that’s sad. However, their inability to adopt and their rigidity to accept the change makes the situation worse. From accepting, I am not referring to that timid elderly surrender before the norm of the day, proving to children that their world makes their parents insecure. No matter how futile the pedestal is, parents ought to our heroes.

Parents who are a success are a great trouble; parents who are not successful greater. The former burdens the children with her/his over-ambitions; the later unburdens her/his unrealised ambitions. No matter who the parents are, we the children are bound by their un/fulfilled ambitions. On one side, we are prompted to be romantic by surrendering any worldly desire; on another pragmatic by embracing the most successful, as per our parents’ knowledge, profession. Since brigadier, doctor, engineer and doctor/engineer-cum-bureaucrat was their definition of being successful; they hardly realise that potential lies in other avenues too. And, if they need, they take advice from those friends who are as old as hills, hence, no chances of changing/improving the future.

Lecturing is the weapon that only parents know how to use best. They can lecture all day, all week, all year, as long as they are alive, even if there are no subsequent results. If for a moment they could pause and think where the fault lies, the fault lines might be fixed. It is performing the action in the wrong direction that gives away no reaction. The harangue is not always admonitory; at times it is just a way to let out the pent up emotions. To make the weaker feel bad is a tried and tested way to feel better. Though all have their own dispositions, parents must remember that a child is as much a fruit of nature as of circumstances. Little good is expected of an imprisoned convicted fellow: s/he did something bad, got convicted/labelled, isolated from the normal world, and left at the disposal of worse members of community.

Did not they know, before breeding half a dozen kiddos, that we are a poor country and the state could only supply free vaccination and free medicines (in government hospitals). Was it the fault of the innocuous that they spawned more than what they could feed? If you blame your children for being the reason of a life not less than torture, why do you expect your children to be the victim of the same system of life-long spousal bullying? Or did you enjoy it and pretended otherwise? The over-rated marriages are the thin ice that could hardly survive the test of time if not entrapped with progeny – the sooner it follows the better. Then they inoculate their bizarre ideas in the impressionable brains, ranging from the effortless supremacy of Muslims to the conniving schemes of the in-laws to mislead the family.

Children are ingenious not because they invent new things but because they pick up things, random things from the house and its inhabitants. Parents ask their children to love each other while, being bourgeois, instilling competition between them whether it is grades, affections or services. Parents are also masters of embarrassing their replicas in public. They spoil the brats and expect neighbours and relatives to admonish their children in a way that best suits their purpose – not to mention the world known sacrifices that they made for the poor souls. With them everything gets a little too much, be it the tantrums they spill, the predictions they make, the warnings, the blackmailing.

Look at the child and you can tell who her/his parents are. In a third world country, we cannot blame that majority of parents who take the future of their children as a long term investment, but that investment must not be made in a way that the child would live unduly subdued for the rest of the her/his life, acting as a minor. The tactics that the older generations played are not going to work anymore: children do their homework and understand how to allure the benefactor.

If they want to improve us, parents would have to change their ways. They would have to develop an understanding of what is consuming their children. They cannot expect a child to go in an expensive English medium school and return a moralist. It will be a real achievement if the modern school can teach the student ABC. What is not at exercised at home cannot be learnt from the outside, except bad habits. It is good habits in our ideals (be it parents or teachers) that remind us who we ought to be. And, last but not the least, we love you without all lectures and tantrums. In the absence of continuous reminders to your sacrifices, this love and respect will culminate into a responsibility fulfilled with love, not disgust.