PARENTING-A super-new religion
Though birthdays are amazing times to wait for throughout the year, I hate them. When I look back now, I see no reason to cherish my childhood. I mean I hardly saw my father while growing up and I’d got a really nerve-racking loud mother who would keep complaining about every single thing, activity and person I came across. I was told that I should not have friends because they would only ruin my studies. I was told not to go out of the house because it’s in some weird way “just bad”. I was told to study, study and only study. I studied. I studied not only my books but the world and the people around me. I realized that there are way more important things to achieve in life than just getting few good grades in a piece of paper. I realized that not everything that our elders say is actually worth listening or accepting. We live in a world of achievements and improvements. It’s a Dog-eat-Puppy world. You have to be the majestic Irish wolfhound in order to get to the biggest kennel and the largest piece of bone. But you also got to have the human compassion that keeps us alive and which is primarily lacking in Asian ways of parenting. I know we had mother’s day recently and everyone of us is quite grateful to our mothers and in India we don’t actually talk our minds about our elders, yet I would take the liberty of making few points that are valid in Parenting to raise up excellent citizens of the world.
Wouldn’t it be fun to think of a new religion that surpasses the idiotic ways of all the rest?
How to begin and how to be politically correct? This question is killing me while I sit down with my laptop on my lap to write this piece. I would just share a scene that I see every day in South Korea.-the over-indulgence of parents in their child’s life. I met some researchers here who would claim their Ph.Ds after few months and they would receive calls from their mothers at 7pm asking their whereabouts. These people can never actually have a decent cup of coffee with some friends but would have to rush back home after ‘school’. Another scene I recollect is when I was in Jharkhand doing my Bachelor’s. A girl had worn salwar kameez and gotten into the bus. After almost 3 months I heard the news that she was about to get married. She wore salwar that day because she had to meet her then-probable-in-laws after ‘school’. Both these scenes made me realize what a pathetic world I live in. Parents want to be involved in every single breathe we take in. I now look at my life and realize that I have the freedom of action, speech and the sense to take the right action. This is because I earn and I pay 300$ as rent for my own apartment in the middle of Daegu, South Korea. But the scars that my childhood left in me are left untreated forever.
If parenting is the next new religion, we should take into account what constitutes a religion. In layman’s language, religion is basically any means by which you can achieve peace of mind and forget your worries about the world. So why not make parenting the next religion? I mean if you think of it, it would be so good if you can devote your life to reflect upon good and honest parents rather than burning oil (which is a scarce natural resource anyway!)!
Parenting needs effort. It is not just natural role. Motherhood or Fatherhood may be natural but not Parenthood. Your child needs to be molded in the proper shape. Their minds are a white canvas and you are the artists to draw on it. Parenting needs knowledge of how your child may think or act long down the lane.
Principles of this religion:
- Swearing: Swearing should be prohibited in any public or private place. No matter how angry a person gets, he or she should never speak uncalled and hurting words to anybody. Children pick on emotions. They can sense anger and hatred. They should never be exposed to violence in oral or physical form whatsoever.
- Negativity: Children are like migratory birds. They sense trouble and try to migrate to a safer place. For most children, they do not have any other place to escape except just witness the constant bitter negative nagging from some parents.
- Appropriate amount of attention: Human compassion can do miracles. Children need love and the feeling of ‘being needed’ and ‘being loved’. However there should be a distinct line drawn to amount of attention to make sure they are not spoilt.
- Working Mothers: A very wrong impression lasts on some peoples’ mindsets. A strong, working mother with tremendous decision making ability and management skills will result in a child who would respect women more if the child is a boy and in case of a girl child, will make the girl child want to step into her mother’s shoes thus creating a cycle of strong figures of feminism.
- Not dictate your child’s opinion.: A person needs to have the ability to make his/her own decision. The child needs to know and have the ability to make a decision, such as the ability to do his/her homework or the ability to decide how many hours to study and the ability to decide to do his/her school project by himself/ herself.
