"What is the world coming to???!!!?? No occasion for kids to engage in free play these days... Gadgets, internet, too many after school activities....Everything is structured and supervised...Where is the opportunity to be unique? The internet craze is like a widespread disease....as a parent, how do you monitor? How do you do the right thing? Kids are being bullied on the internet ....", exclaimed my distraught cousin - a very concerned Mom of three kids.
My cousin raised some very valid points that got me thinking, is there really no hope for the kids of Generation Z? Is the world really going to dogs? Are things truly not the way they were 100 years ago? Or would a better question be - do we want things to be the same?
Rewind several hundred years ago: History isn't impressive. Roman Empires rose and fell. Asian continents underwent a series of regimes from local rulers to foreign ones. Europe was in a state of war for a better part of 100 years. We lived in a world where rulers and monarchs had limited goals in mind: increase their wealth, broaden their sphere of control (power), extend their borders etc. Civilized existence was hard to come by... yet, our ancestors survived.
Fast-forward to 100 years ago: Civilization improved. Living conditions improved. Governments were being formed all across the world. New ideas, new inventions were slowly but surely revolutionizing the world. The World Wars were fought. We were under the dominance of the British Raj. Freedom of speech was non-existent. Women did not have the right to vote. Yet, our ancestors survived.
Our parents grew up in joint families. Their parents had several children. Women rarely stepped out of the household to earn a living. Men were working hard to either fulfill debts accumulated by their ancestors or supporting their own families in addition to extended families. Money was scarce. Many times, girls were asked to sacrifice their ambitions and some times even their education to allow their brothers to study further. Yet, our parents survived.
We grew up in nuclear families. Our parents worked very hard to give us a decent standard of living. They invested in our education. They supported our ambitions. However, life was not a bed of roses for us either. We too had some things lacking. The extra-curricular, recreational activities fell wayside and studies were given more importance. It was a world of fierce competition. "Survival of the fittest" was the mantra of our generation. We fought against all kinds of odds to get admission into the college of our dreams. Creativity was stifled because it was more important to get a "real" job. Yet, we survived.
Point in case, history is replete with examples where generations over generations have survived tough living conditions. Then are our children so weak that we have no hope left for them anymore? What is wrong with a little bit of structure in our lives? What about the endless opportunities that are out there that we didn't have when we were kids? And would you rather live in a world without Internet, when the average time to reach an individual across the other continent is not hours, days, weeks - but months????!!! Yes, that's how long it took for a letter sent from America to reach your kith and kin living in India.
When Edison invented light bulb or when Alexander Graham Bell invented telephone, the world was taken by storm. But today can we truly imagine ourselves living in a world without these life changing inventions? When the fathers of modern Internet, Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn invented TCP/IP, a revolution had begun. Today information is available at one's fingertips and communication channels have shortened the distance between two countries.
However, there are two sides to every coin. With the good, also comes the bad. The purchasing capacity of the people has gone up. Standards of living have significantly improved. Children are caving in to peer pressure to procure the latest gizmos and gadgets - thus opening the door to a world full of cyber bullies, pedophiles and other socially incompetent creeps who prey on the innocence and weakness to hide their own shortcomings.
Life, is not fair, is it? We have no control over how we come into this world. We have no control over what kind of families we are born into. We have no control over our surroundings. But as we grow up, we do have a control over the choices we make. These choices can either make us or break us. So while it is easier to blame our ambiance, our society, our government or even the world at large, it is difficult to deal with it.
In Mahabharat, Lord Krishna was on the side of Pandavas since Day 1. Then why did they have to suffer inordinate humiliations, hardships and misfortunes? It is because that is how it was meant to be. Life is full of challenges. The choices we make, along with the attitudes we adopt, largely defines our destiny. Pandavas had to suffer the consequences of their actions. But overall, had they picked greed, vice and deceit, they could never have obtained the Lord's support. In the end they overcame their odds honorably - by virtue of their own actions.
Solange Nicole, a writer, has aptly said, “A diamond doesn't start out polished and shining. It once was nothing special, but with enough pressure and time, becomes spectacular.” Point is, we all know that there are bad propensities out there. But do we give up all hope for our children? I think not. Children are like wet clay. It is up to us as parents to mold them when they are soft and pliable. No one said is going to be easy. It means we have to be twice as vigilant, twice as savvy, twice as sharp. Regardless of the challenges we face, it is our ultimately our choice: to either be doers or moaners.
My cousin raised some very valid points that got me thinking, is there really no hope for the kids of Generation Z? Is the world really going to dogs? Are things truly not the way they were 100 years ago? Or would a better question be - do we want things to be the same?
Rewind several hundred years ago: History isn't impressive. Roman Empires rose and fell. Asian continents underwent a series of regimes from local rulers to foreign ones. Europe was in a state of war for a better part of 100 years. We lived in a world where rulers and monarchs had limited goals in mind: increase their wealth, broaden their sphere of control (power), extend their borders etc. Civilized existence was hard to come by... yet, our ancestors survived.
Fast-forward to 100 years ago: Civilization improved. Living conditions improved. Governments were being formed all across the world. New ideas, new inventions were slowly but surely revolutionizing the world. The World Wars were fought. We were under the dominance of the British Raj. Freedom of speech was non-existent. Women did not have the right to vote. Yet, our ancestors survived.
Our parents grew up in joint families. Their parents had several children. Women rarely stepped out of the household to earn a living. Men were working hard to either fulfill debts accumulated by their ancestors or supporting their own families in addition to extended families. Money was scarce. Many times, girls were asked to sacrifice their ambitions and some times even their education to allow their brothers to study further. Yet, our parents survived.
We grew up in nuclear families. Our parents worked very hard to give us a decent standard of living. They invested in our education. They supported our ambitions. However, life was not a bed of roses for us either. We too had some things lacking. The extra-curricular, recreational activities fell wayside and studies were given more importance. It was a world of fierce competition. "Survival of the fittest" was the mantra of our generation. We fought against all kinds of odds to get admission into the college of our dreams. Creativity was stifled because it was more important to get a "real" job. Yet, we survived.
Point in case, history is replete with examples where generations over generations have survived tough living conditions. Then are our children so weak that we have no hope left for them anymore? What is wrong with a little bit of structure in our lives? What about the endless opportunities that are out there that we didn't have when we were kids? And would you rather live in a world without Internet, when the average time to reach an individual across the other continent is not hours, days, weeks - but months????!!! Yes, that's how long it took for a letter sent from America to reach your kith and kin living in India.
When Edison invented light bulb or when Alexander Graham Bell invented telephone, the world was taken by storm. But today can we truly imagine ourselves living in a world without these life changing inventions? When the fathers of modern Internet, Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn invented TCP/IP, a revolution had begun. Today information is available at one's fingertips and communication channels have shortened the distance between two countries.
However, there are two sides to every coin. With the good, also comes the bad. The purchasing capacity of the people has gone up. Standards of living have significantly improved. Children are caving in to peer pressure to procure the latest gizmos and gadgets - thus opening the door to a world full of cyber bullies, pedophiles and other socially incompetent creeps who prey on the innocence and weakness to hide their own shortcomings.
Life, is not fair, is it? We have no control over how we come into this world. We have no control over what kind of families we are born into. We have no control over our surroundings. But as we grow up, we do have a control over the choices we make. These choices can either make us or break us. So while it is easier to blame our ambiance, our society, our government or even the world at large, it is difficult to deal with it.
In Mahabharat, Lord Krishna was on the side of Pandavas since Day 1. Then why did they have to suffer inordinate humiliations, hardships and misfortunes? It is because that is how it was meant to be. Life is full of challenges. The choices we make, along with the attitudes we adopt, largely defines our destiny. Pandavas had to suffer the consequences of their actions. But overall, had they picked greed, vice and deceit, they could never have obtained the Lord's support. In the end they overcame their odds honorably - by virtue of their own actions.
Solange Nicole, a writer, has aptly said, “A diamond doesn't start out polished and shining. It once was nothing special, but with enough pressure and time, becomes spectacular.” Point is, we all know that there are bad propensities out there. But do we give up all hope for our children? I think not. Children are like wet clay. It is up to us as parents to mold them when they are soft and pliable. No one said is going to be easy. It means we have to be twice as vigilant, twice as savvy, twice as sharp. Regardless of the challenges we face, it is our ultimately our choice: to either be doers or moaners.
No comments:
Post a Comment