By
Vanita Khanna
Children
are such
a source
of joy. Every
parent deep
down wants
to be a perfect
parent sometimes with the norms of the society and sometimes setting their own
rules.
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The
experience of creating a new life
is beyond any other feeling in
the world. Something so very precious
and truly a part of you, which
has a strong
resemblance too. But hey, wait a minute…! Are our children really content with
the way things are, or truly speaking, are we ? I would choose to think not,
or else we would not be reading
about teenage gang-rapes, theft,
suicides and violence.
This goes to show that we, as parents, have somewhere failed down the line. In
our battle to give our children the best of everything, something has terribly
gone wrong.
We as parents want the child to live upto our expectations and sometimes pursue
a career which we feel is right for them, or our dreams which we could not fulfill.
Naturally they are nurtured with love and care, but it is unfair to expect them
to let go of their dreams for us. For each person is an individual in his or
her own right. We can guide them, support their decision, and be there for them
when they fall. Let your child bloom like a flower and give them your love and
affection like you would give water and sunshine to a plant to grow.
Agreed, peer pressure has a major role to play in the outcome. With drug abuse
being a fairly common factor. Children’s value systems are all often confused,
due to the television and internet boom. Every crime is hyped by the media to
make the culprit look and sound like a hero. For instance, the Dhanajay Chatterji case,
which was blown out of proportion. The very fact, that after committing such
a gruesome crime, he lived for 13 more years and had the cheek to ask for
a pardon by the Supreme Court. This was digusting. Even the process of how he
was to be hanged was shown step by step on television. This incident had provoked
many children to try out the hanging themselves and many of them succumbed to
it and lost their lives.
The lesser said about the MMS incident, the better. It left the whole nation
shocked. Each parent thought that this could only happen to some other child,
definitely not theirs. How ironic that the more we try to protect our children,
the more they are exposed to it. We form a cocoon around them, thinking that
nothing can harm them. But this is not so. It is actually a constant battle to
protect our children and make them tough to face the world at the same time.
The most precious feeling for a child is that his or her parents love each other.
The security derived from this feeling is so complete.
Sure, in this day and age of single mothers and divorced spouses, things have
changed. A single parent, making up for the other half, is the norm in these
cases, where only some succeed. With the joint family system also diminishing
and children not having their grandparents around, the child lacks the ideal
requirements for growth. Children who have been left with the maids or crèches
in the formative years, surely miss out a lot. Bribing them with the latest gizmos
and gadgets in the later years is definitely no compensation. More than the kids,
it is the parents who use these tactics to free themselves of the guilt of not
being able to spend quality time with their kids.
Only a child can tell how perfect his or her parents have been… the same way
how a parent can know the qualities of their child. At the end of the day, no
one is perfect. The way we all know deep down, our strengths and weaknesses,
the same way we are aware of our childs qualities. Because if we are not there,
yes, we have definitely fallen in “The Perfect Parent Trap”.
Vanita Khanna
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