Let us accept it, once and for all: We live in a parent-dominated society, an intense one. Extremity, on a guardian's part, is more than common: it is a passion, a stereotype-turned-law. Unwritten laws are the worst: where parents rule, children face more depression than they can handle.
Is this, too, the fault of children?
Don't take me wrong. I have nothing, I repeat, nothing against parents who do their jobs, and do them well. But there are certain places where parents need to take the back seat, understand their child's perspective, and give their child a well-deserved bout of freedom. This bout of freedom is labelled 'unnecessary' by today's Pakistani parents, though.
Enid Blyton rose well above the lands of criticism, defeating the likes of renowned, raging critics - critics whose word was unwritten law, whose sight was deemed fantastic. Her characters are loved, cherished and celebrated the globe across. Recent studies reveal a major pointer in their popularity among children: their collective sense of freedom.
What is this, you may ask? Blyton's work focuses on children, in, out and around, and it represents them as a race in themselves, free of bonds they need to break in order to attain so much as their basic rights. Food, something every child glorifies and glories in, is freely distributed; they run, they play, they hide. Young girls are not forced to 'walk' when a boy their age is within earshot, young boys are not told they must, must, must, must sleep before eight on a Saturday night.
Children, today, identify their desires in these characters. Correspondingly, they are treasured more than a parent's words - And I'm all for it.
Parents are here to guide, to care, to love, to uplift. In today's world, however, they, though use of force and sheer lack of understanding, misguide, injure, hate and discourage. Children are bundles of potential: unexplained restrictions, all forced upon them sans a word of good, mould them into flames of hatred. This is where things go wrong. Where suicide, kidnappings, run-aways and self-injury steps in to drive away their innocence, the good within their souls.
This, my dear, is where parents go wrong.
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01-31-2008 07:39 PM