Children

There was a time when children were considered to be very important. They were supposed to be carrying legacies, values and experiences forward. But then there came a break; parenthood liberated itself. Parents realised that children were growing up with their support and then forgoing all responsibilities. They were not really carrying forward legacies & values or learning from experiences. Things that should have happened spontaneously were needing to be spelt out. So like throwing out the proverbial baby with the bathwater, parents withdrew themselves. Without saying anything they as if told their children that if our legacy, our values, our experiences mean anything to you then carry them forward through the work you do in your lives. And so their relationship with their children became very functional and defined in terms of the kind of states that it allowed. Emotions were no longer allowed to erupt spontaneously. Inheritance was no longer assumed for possessions or legacies that the parents had achieved/accumulated in their lives. But this brought one problem to light. Children started having to generate their entire lives by themselves. There was no concept of any guideline, any blueprint being present by default. Affection was without context. So the love and acceptance that commonly flows by default is halted. Acceptance is a rare sentiment and if parents don’t extend it towards children, for the children it becomes a gaping hole sometimes because nobody else is accepting them. Their desire to be accepted remains unfulfilled and develops into a ‘malady of the soul’.

Why does acceptance become such a sore point? Everybody looks at us in terms of what they need from us. If we do not provide what is expected from us immediately then we are thought to be bad players. Players not motivated or ready to play. If we do not play, we stop the flow of various opportunities to us. We become a benign and non-participative agent in the game. Some parents are good at mirroring the world back to their children. The limitations, the challenges, the difficulty… But that is not what parents are for. The world is anyway going to make its opinions apparent. The parent typically softens the blow when it comes to that. It is always a blow though. The world wants to let the subject know that more blows are coming his or her way. And for it, the best way to say this is with a blow. In fact the threat of so many blows can itself make the subject change his or her position on whichever matter that is being contested at the moment. If parents don’t accept their offspring’s life choices then who will? If parents masquerade as outsiders who will play the insider’s role? These are crucial questions and need to be discussed between the two parties. The contrary is also true though. If parents don’t say the full unadulterated truth to their children then who will? Sometimes parents need to play other roles than the one assigned to then by nature because of the need.

The child is sometimes so cut off from the real world that only his or her parents can be a bridge that is, in real terms reflect what the world outside wants him or her to hear. Because of the reflection, it is likely to be heard more carefully too. This point illustrates the point that parents want optimal action to be performed by their children sometimes and not just maintain an optimal but uncommunicative relationship. “Optimal action” is the action most suited for health, long life and long term well-being. It does not have anything to do with individual preferences or whims. And at this juncture of this discussion on parenting strategies and right action to be taken in different situations we will also analyse some core points that make this situation into a crisis. What a child needs to hear and how he or she needs to be heard are two closely intertwined points. And both the perspectives that makes them intertwined are valid. The child’s need for unconditional acceptance and the child’s need to hear the urgent truth are both grave realities that need some mind-jogging to understand how they ought to be fulfilled in the most apt way. Can unconditional acceptance be offered to a child by anyone else than a parent? Does anyone else have the access to the child to communicate in the context of urgent matters? Somehow in my book, both questions are answered negatively leaving the parent in a difficult place. A much more difficult place than the child can imagine.

So, although it is difficult and uncharacteristic for me to do, I would say that the child needs to hear more than be heard. The crises in front of him or her is to understand the predicament his parent is facing.