Save the Children, Now
April 2nd, 2007 , by taruagwl I have for a long time now, been upset with the kind of upbringing Indian children are getting. This refers to children born in the 90s and after. Things like the ones below simply disgust me, cause me pain and despair.
1) Children watching violent/ explicit movies that even adults feel horrified to see
2) Kids fighting with parents for the latest toy/ dresses/ gadgets.. what have you!
3) Teenagers sitting in Coffee Parlours….sipping a cappuccino worth 60 bucks
4) Teenagers surfing the net on the behest of ‘studying’
5) Students carrying mobiles (latest ones mind you), ipods, owning personal TVs
6) Children eating junk food and not good old Indian Cuisine of roti, dal and sabji.
This list is almost endless for me. I get this extremely discomforting feeling inside whenever I witness these things. And for those people who say that upbringing is better in the eastern cultures as compared to the west, I think it’s about time they realized it isn’t so, at least not now. I have observed so many families where at least two of these things are pretty much an everyday affair. And these are regular, normal, happy families.
Less than six months ago, I met this teenager who according to his parents surfs the net to get more information on his subjects. This kid now has his own profile on orkut. He goes to school, is about 16 years old and I wondered if he has ever read even his own books. I wonder why a kid his age would need to be on a social networking site. If you tell me, it helps keep in touch with friends, isn’t email good enough? So what is he doing unmonitored on the web? I shudder to think of the possibilities.
I have seen teenagers sit for hours on end in café’s. I don’t understand how these kids manage to get that much money. As a child I never got pocket money. And any money I did get for small kiddy parties used to be monitored. Now I am not saying that we should curb all freedom of youngsters, but I fail to understand how gossiping in coffee days’ and barista’s helps improve their lives. To add to this, some kids even smoke. Why if you ask them, answer just spats out you ‘Its Cool!’. Cool??? I will let you decide.
Even worse is young girls (I can’t even call them young, these are toddlers below the age of five) dancing to really invigorating Hindi movie numbers. And parents actually feeling proud! What has happened to the parents?? Have any of you seen the boogie woogie dance show, the kids version. Man, how I hated it. I could not stand it for a second. I don’t get why kids need to dance to numbers like ‘Dhak Dhak karne laga’ when many sweeter songs like ‘Imli ka boota’ exist. Isnt it time for children to dance to ‘Clap your hands’ kinda rhymes. I mean they have the rest of their lives to dance to other songs. I wonder what happens to moral policing when it comes to these shows. And historical movies like WATER get the axe….
I could go on and on about how every thing is dark and gloomy. Thankfully, I have come across two (yes, only two) families with amazing parent child bond. The relationship is open/ honest and I have never seen kids of these families needing to lie or hide stuff. I wish that one day we stop hiding things below the carpet, and have more open parent-child relationships. I think the clock is ticking away on this. I worry for the child of tomorrow. Save the children, Now.
April 2nd, 2007 at 5:55 am
I am not sure if I feel so strong about this issue but it sure does bother me. I have seen teen-agers spending hard earned money in cafe coffee days on smoke and coffee. Some sense of responsibility and right culture needs to be inculcated in the tomorrow’s generation. Even those high school folks who work in BPOs, they need to understand that it can not be a long term career. Just because they start getting fat salaries just at the age of 17-18, the money can not be spent on pubs, booze, condoms and movies. Put the things in perspective and be more aware about the future and career.
April 5th, 2007 at 5:57 am
When i look at kids today sometimes i wonder where are we going..we keep talking about moral policing.. But do we follow it ourselves.. Lets face it we all are hypocrites when it comes to the tabooed topics… Sex is the most tabooed topic in our country but it is the only thing which is being used to sell every other product.. whether its car, perfume…nething…
First of all we need to get out of this hyporcrisy to save the children…
Mothers are not comfortable telling their kids how they were born.. ofcourse one doesn’t have to go to intricate details but still why do we have to tell them all sort of stories… Where would a confused kid go? He will find his means to get all answers …
Now with the concept of nuclear families;both parents working.. no time to spend with kids.. hence to compensate they buy all sort of expensive items…Parents have money and the GUILT and kids have exposure.The result….coffees at coffee shops, high end gadgets…
Sometimes i wish to go back to the old ways of living. where friends and families had the time to spend with each other.. when books and newspapers were the only means of exposure…
“KOI LAUTA DE WOH BEETE HUY DEEN…..”
April 9th, 2007 at 9:10 pm
Just found this article on times:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1881344.cms
June 28th, 2007 at 1:37 am
The youngsters today are armed with all the latest hi tech toys- ipods,mobiles etc. and can afford expensive coffee and all that money can buy!
I mentioned this to a friend saying this will definitely hamper the mental growth of a child, make him dependent on gadgets for every little calculation… my friend pointed out that compared to our parents’ good ol’ generation, don’t we have far more luxuries-we manage to do well , we would not go back to the days of abacus when we have calculators- can we blame the generations after us for using advanced version of the gadgets we are so dependent on.Everything comes for a price..guess this is what technology brings with it!
However, there’s no excuse for smoking- creating more awareness could help.
Regarding the craze for explicit tv/movies, I say we in India live in denial and refuse to acknowledge that sex is after all just a basic human tendency.A good ol’ conservative middle class Indian would talk about it in the same breath as he would talk about some sin !!! Till we don’t accept a problem, how do we find a solution?
June 29th, 2007 at 1:38 am
I totally agree. The first step to solve a problem is acknowledgment. A country of billion people and growing at a rate of one child per second does not want to accept sex as a normal human behavior! What an irony. I am shit scared with the way our new generation is being brought up. Total disrespect for money, values, education and discipline. This is the generation that we are counting our meteoric growth?
So thats the problem. The ‘wakeupindia’ way of talking about any problem is also to come up with a solution. What do we do to solve it? Inculcating better reading culture, making teenagers work to earn their pocket money and counseling. Question to wakeupindia readers, can NGOs help spread this awareness?