Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Beasts of burden
|
Why do we constantly blame children for what they are? It’s time we confessed we are a generation of bad parents who saddle them with our dreams, says DEEPA GANESH
|
Let them be The joys of drinking in the sights, sounds, smells around is unmeasured
For Mr. Busy Dad and Ms. Super Juggler Mom (pardon the stereotypes, but let’s admit to the diminishing community of those going against the tide in our times) it was a Sunday morning revelation. On an impulse when they landed at the nearest par
k, they were surprised to discover that Doted Darling was ecstatic at the sights, sounds. Loaded with misgivings if this piece of stillness was a good enough outing for the child born into an ever-moving world of mobile phones and moolah, Busy Dad and Super Juggler Mom who came armed with toy cars and guns, had more surprises. The little one was fascinated, as much as they were years ago in that world of simple joys, by the flaming red skin of gulmohar stuck on the nails. The idea of saving the unknown flower and unusual leaf in a scrap book for posterity did whip up excitement.
One of those evenings, when friends filled the home with warmth, the inescapable topic had to come up. “I’m building a house and…,” and there was Doted Darling who had to be a participant in this in-with-the-times conversation, announcing, “I too built a house…”. Mom, in a perpetual bid to protect DD from the big bad world, nearly jumped out of her chair. Already speaking real estate! “My house has four windows and two doors and I built it with sand at school today.”
Cars and guns, structures of permanence, land as money, were monsters dwelling in the minds of the successful Dad, the ambivalent Mom and their likes. For DD, in his unsullied little universe, everything was in a fluid state, willing to let go and absorb. In fact, he was perplexed why he was sternly dragged away from that groundnut-seller who sat in an obscure corner of the park, with the promise of a bag of popcorn at the sanitised supermarket.
Social influences
As a survey done by the University of Briston rightly recognises, children hardly grow up in a vacuum. They are shaped largely by the social worlds they inhabit.
“A child’s personality, interests and activities are neither attributes of an isolated individual nor imposed by the environment, but are firmly located in the interactions between a child and the network or system of social relationships to which each child belongs.”
How often haven’t Mom and Dad caught each other creating enemies out of DD’s friends? Dad’s eyes no longer filled with love for the cherubic X when he bumped into him at the school gate. “Ha…so this is the X who pushed you to the second place…,”, “Yes, he’s my best friend,” little one had walked off, hand in hand.
Isn’t it true that we are a generation of corrupt parents and not corrupt children? Kannada writer Jayant Kaikini has consistently, in many of his writings, celebrated the unspoiled spirit of the “child”. For Jayant, the adult is the mortifying force for whom the child is a peg to suspend all his material worldly aspirations and dump a corrupt value system. In one of his stories, a father pushes his daughter to do well in a quiz contest. This is for the personal deliverance of the father, much to the little girl’s agony. In another essay, this is what he says: “All that your little one needs is your companionship. She wants to hold your hand, eat with you humble puffed rice; she wants you to be a participant in her world. But you take her to an expensive hotel, buy her the most expensive dish, and buy a horribly high-priced toy, because that’s happiness as your commercial world view defines it. When the bill finally arrives, and as you perspire over it, anxiously fumble through the notes in your wallet, a frightful confusion grips the little one… an uncanny silence takes over.”
Creepy silences are becoming frequent in the lives of Dad and Mom too. “Don’t go to office, I won’t go to school. And I promise not to pester you for ice cream or for a toy,” DD meekly whispered into Mom’s ears, before he dropped off to sleep. Even in the disturbing quiet, Mom’s head was ticking furiously about the scary prospects of having to let go of her grandiose dreams for DD.
Class aspect
For critic H.S. Raghavendra Rao, it isn’t such well-defined black and white segregations, parent vs. child. “Essentially, we have never tried to understand children. Our understanding of what is important need not necessarily be important to them. I also believe there is a class aspect to it. It’s more barefaced with the upwardly mobile.” In a many layered society, he thinks one class is a corrupting influence on the other and sees a rigorous indoctrination taking place. “But isn’t it only fair that we ask what is corrupting the parent?” he asks. “To an extent, the State controlled by business is responsible. The other big blow has been the commercialisation of schooling,” he feels.
Is it then a point of no return for Dads and Moms? As they were leaving the park, DD picked up an empty seashell he stumbled upon. To Dad and Mom, did it seem like a potent piece of artillery that could be turned against them? Why did they fling it away?
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
|
