Time and Changes

Back in the days, children played in the park and on fields and it seemed as if the neighbourhood was filled with children. There was only one bicycle and we all rode on it; only one football and we all played it; only one TV and we all watched it.

Competition then was in who’ll take first position in examinations, not in who has more followers on their Instagram account. We didn’t even dream of phones. Who needed a phone when you were always with your friends?

But now we’ve become parents and we can’t get out of being controlled. We are used to being ordered around. Our parents ordered us around, now our children do. “The child is the father of the man” has a literal meaning now.

There are no children in the park, no children on the fields. There is no child in the neighbourhood. There is no bicycle on the road, no football outside and the TV is now in a child’s room. There’s no communality, no discipline, no growth. Just changes.

Children are caged in the houses playing video games and dancing in front of their phone screen to be viewed by fellow children. Children are aspiring to be rich. Not from any profession. Just rich. No values, no morals, no learning. Just changes.

How did we get here?

Children are a product of what they are exposed to. This is not a lecture on parenting. It’s just a fact that our children become what they see, hear and feel. Parenting must be the most difficult job in the world because of how poorly it’s mostly done. Nothing easy is done that poorly.

However, we still have a chance to save the next generation, a chance to give them the disciplined childhood we had. There’s no shame in patience; there’s virtue in it. Teach them love, teach them respect, teach them honour, and teach them aspiration. Let them aspire to be the best at what they do, just like PRODA, without competing with anyone because the sky is large enough for all the birds to fly.