A few days back, I was having an interesting email conversation with my friend a senior colleague on what level of Morality we tend to have and what we expect from others. While that topic (which is something he wrote on) is not what I want to discuss in this, the below is what was a spun off topic on what we do Children these days in terms of our expectations and how well we as parents or family or society give them Moral Education..
Like what I keep saying, our whole system starting from education has been spoilt. We used to have something called moral science in our generation, we used to have grandparents teaching morals to us, but these are now a luxury. In fact, I can blame it only on the parents of this generation for this as, we seem to accept things as is and we do not want to fight it. We think it is not our fight and let this immorality become the norm for our children.
I was in a How to be better parenting presentation few days back and the trainer asked the audience what each one of us was our child to be. The trainer asked me only as the last person, “Raj what do you want your daughter to be?”. True to myself, I said, I want them to be good human beings with right morals, fighting attitude, mental and physical fitness and nice social awareness with excellent self-esteem. Interestingly, none of the parents were near to what I wanted.
Coming back to the point, the point is Moral values are getting lost in India and thanks to parents & society and the need of the hour is each of us need to go back to the roots. In that session, all parents (not that I blame them) wanted their children to be scientist, doctor, IAS etc.,. forgetting about being Human Beings. We are being pressured by our peers and worse by the peers of our children too.
Not that I claim I’m best parent, but that is what I tell my daughters every single day like a slogan. Be patient, be honest, be brave, be calm, be tolerant, be respectful and so on (at least 25 as much as I could think of). Even then, I feel am not close to what I want to instill in their thoughts. I do often get scared that when they become like what I say, they will be odd ladies out, but then at least am trying.
What I leave for them is not significant, what I leave in them is very important.
Now whether or not am right or if it would be good for my daughters, is for the time to judge. But then, I feel am nurturing my seeds in the right way and in a responsible way too. Am a firm believer that honesty and hard work pay, though at times it is a very difficult choice, but I feel am content and can sleep very well at nights.
I know there are many other different (and better) ways of doing it, but then one cannot master all!
- Raj
