There are parents who give their time, money and energy to bring up their children. But I am provoked to write this piece looking at the plight of children whose parents have apparently lost focus on their children due to vested interests. So one is forced to ask: Do we - the present age parents - really need to have kids? Honestly, the answer is no. We are not meeting the expectations of our kids, either consciously or unconsciously. For instance, the scenes at the play schools reflect the harsh realities. Kids with abnormalities, communication problems, aged less than two years are dumped in the school. Worse still, some of the parents don’t even bother to pick their kids up in time. You can see these kids waiting near the school gate with eyes wide open and looking forlornly…. “Has mom forgotten me?”
Indeed most of the kids have some kind of abnormalities - psychological or physiological. Parents would know better if they look into the eyes of their kids, listen to their words, experience their pain, discomfort, angst, likes, dislikes and basic needs and fulfil it with soothing words, hugs, kisses and bond with them. It helps kids, to a large extent, to grow out of their inhibitions. But the problem is, we don’t know what our kids want or expect from us. We don’t know when or what to feed and when they need to sleep and rest. Wonder how many mothers today can plan “nutritious and edible” diet for their kids? We are zealous, innovative and sometimes even ready to go overboard in office work just to please our boss. But when it comes to pleasing our kids, we are clueless. Is it because we don’t get paid for it?
Today the tendency is to dump the kids in school. Parents, especially mothers, want to get detached from kids as soon as possible so that they can pursue their career goals. So we come across a mother who hands over her one year old happy and jovial child to a relative for fifteen days. No wonder, the kid comes back traumatised.
Kids want to spend time with us. But we have our own agenda – careers, ambitions, hobbies, shopping, parties, movies, etc. We don’t want to sacrifice anything for the sake of kids. When they want to play, eat and sleep with us in our sweet home, we expose them to heat, dust, and polluted streets. So we can come across scenes like - infants at late night music concerts, hot coffee getting spilled on an infant at a restaurant and on.
Fathers, as usual, are busy with job, newspaper, television and of course networking on mobile phone. Now mothers also want to do something more and different. Perhaps, most of them think spending time with kids is like getting ‘stuck’ at home. They are eager to impose ready made baby food so that they can easily get detached with kids. We are into the business of making money. And as working parents we have the ability to provide junk food, material things or buy anything under the sun for our kids. But what we cannot give is, time for kids.
For us, having kids is obligatory due to pressure from peers and elders. So we have them. But we have failed as parents. Kids need us. We don’t bother. They cry, crib and crank to get attention. But we impose television, junk food and material things on them. We want our kids to grow fast and get independent faster. When they want to talk to us we silence or don’t listen to them. After all their efforts to bond with us fail, they too start drifting away from us. They stop responding to us. They don’t listen to us. Then we complain that kids don’t respect us. Life comes to a full circle. We get the taste of our own medicine.
In short, we, the present generation of parents, have not only lost an opportunity to see our kids grow but are possibly now breeding a generation of brats with psychological disorders, deprived of love and what not! It was our choice and decision to bring them into this world. They are dependent on us. But we have LET THEM DOWN.
We show a great deal of empathy for movies like “Tare Zameen Par” and “Slumdog Millionaire” But let me tell you, I feel so depressed looking at the way kids are treated today that they appear to me more or less like “slumdogs”.
Indeed most of the kids have some kind of abnormalities - psychological or physiological. Parents would know better if they look into the eyes of their kids, listen to their words, experience their pain, discomfort, angst, likes, dislikes and basic needs and fulfil it with soothing words, hugs, kisses and bond with them. It helps kids, to a large extent, to grow out of their inhibitions. But the problem is, we don’t know what our kids want or expect from us. We don’t know when or what to feed and when they need to sleep and rest. Wonder how many mothers today can plan “nutritious and edible” diet for their kids? We are zealous, innovative and sometimes even ready to go overboard in office work just to please our boss. But when it comes to pleasing our kids, we are clueless. Is it because we don’t get paid for it?
Today the tendency is to dump the kids in school. Parents, especially mothers, want to get detached from kids as soon as possible so that they can pursue their career goals. So we come across a mother who hands over her one year old happy and jovial child to a relative for fifteen days. No wonder, the kid comes back traumatised.
Kids want to spend time with us. But we have our own agenda – careers, ambitions, hobbies, shopping, parties, movies, etc. We don’t want to sacrifice anything for the sake of kids. When they want to play, eat and sleep with us in our sweet home, we expose them to heat, dust, and polluted streets. So we can come across scenes like - infants at late night music concerts, hot coffee getting spilled on an infant at a restaurant and on.
Fathers, as usual, are busy with job, newspaper, television and of course networking on mobile phone. Now mothers also want to do something more and different. Perhaps, most of them think spending time with kids is like getting ‘stuck’ at home. They are eager to impose ready made baby food so that they can easily get detached with kids. We are into the business of making money. And as working parents we have the ability to provide junk food, material things or buy anything under the sun for our kids. But what we cannot give is, time for kids.
For us, having kids is obligatory due to pressure from peers and elders. So we have them. But we have failed as parents. Kids need us. We don’t bother. They cry, crib and crank to get attention. But we impose television, junk food and material things on them. We want our kids to grow fast and get independent faster. When they want to talk to us we silence or don’t listen to them. After all their efforts to bond with us fail, they too start drifting away from us. They stop responding to us. They don’t listen to us. Then we complain that kids don’t respect us. Life comes to a full circle. We get the taste of our own medicine.
In short, we, the present generation of parents, have not only lost an opportunity to see our kids grow but are possibly now breeding a generation of brats with psychological disorders, deprived of love and what not! It was our choice and decision to bring them into this world. They are dependent on us. But we have LET THEM DOWN.
We show a great deal of empathy for movies like “Tare Zameen Par” and “Slumdog Millionaire” But let me tell you, I feel so depressed looking at the way kids are treated today that they appear to me more or less like “slumdogs”.
