More and more parents are making the lives of their children miserable

If producing kids is the only qualification to be a parent, then animals are greater parents than human beings. Parenting means to feed, protect, shelter, love, and most importantly, to educate the little ones. When we are young, we have less responsibilities. As we grow up, our responsibilities multiply. We need more money, fame, name, social status. Marriage is never an easy thing, so how can producing kids be easy. Think before producing kids because it is a big responsibility, rather the biggest responsibility. I am not against traditions and customs; what you want to do but please think before doing it, lest you fill someone’s life with tears for the sake of your joys.
When you become a parent, it is your responsibility to look after your kids. You have to give them your love unconditionally, not your outdated thoughts and manners. My parents always keep telling me to speak the truth, but they rarely have the time to listen to my truth. They gossip. They watch TV. They use foul language. They smoke. They mistreat me. They also discriminate between me and my siblings. On the top of it, they want me to stop my education and serve them as if they are Mughal kings.
A parent is not someone who always has to give orders. A parent is someone who has the patience to listen to kids suffering from dozens of physical and psychological problems. I am observing people around me for a long time, and what I found is that almost all kids are running away from their insensitive and narrow-minded parents. Why are modern children afraid to share their problems with their own parents? Are parents some devils who will eat their kids up if the latter talk to them honestly or express their feelings innocently? Why are children able to have thousands of friends outside their homes but the same children are rude to their parents at home? The role of a parent is not to stop a child from following his/her dreams. Most people fail to achieve their goals because their families interfere unnecessarily. Parents always want that their kids should be on the top. Why? Is it a problem to be oneself? Why we have to do what other kids are good at? If Sachin Tendulkar had been told by his parents to be like Amitabh Bachchan, think what would have happened? If a fish is asked to fly like a sparrow, imagine the consequences.
From the day one, a kid is told ‘if you make your clothes dirty, we will beat you. Don’t do this, don’t do that. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.’ Come on, if kids will not experience for themselves, how will they learn the difference between right and wrong? How have parents learnt? You ask your parents how did they learn? They will admit that they were allowed to face problems and they learnt to solve problems. If I am facing a problem, I will also find its solution, sooner or later. Why do parents start teaching their children in Hitler style? I believe the things we are stopped from are the things we grow up to love the most. As the saying goes, ‘curiosity kills the cat.’ After becoming a parent, never think of your child as your slave. If you think so, you are destroying your relationship with your kid. Eventually, you will lose your child.
Nowadays kids prefer to talk to strangers or on social media whenever and wherever they get a chance. Parents create unnecessary communication gaps between themselves and their children. Who among today’s parents tell their kids from the very childhood that ‘if you have some problem, do tell us’. Some parents do listen for the first time, but make fun of the feelings of the child the next time, and then keep ignoring him/her .
Kid: Mom, I have a problem. Please listen to me.
Mother: Tell your father when he will come home in the evening.
Father: (In the evening): I am tired from work, I will listen to you tomorrow.
[And that tomorrow never comes.]
Nowadays depression rate is so high in children of age 12 or more. Do you know what is the main reason for it? Parents. Because they never give due attention to their kids. Every problem starts at home. We are social beings and we all need is a friend to talk with. Do you know why modern kids prefer to have girlfriends or boyfriends? Because they feel alone at their own homes. Children who are not loved at home go outside to find love. My parents discourage me often by asking me about my achievements in life. I have passed the Class 12th board exams and I study medical subjects at college. My parents have never been to schools. Their only achievement is smoking tobacco and bullying me. They fail to understand that below average kids study arts, average kids study commerce, and brilliant kids study medicine in Kashmir. Almost 70% parents don’t know what their kids are good at. They never care to learn. They never visit the schools and colleges of their kids to know about their performance. Almost all young kids suffer at the hands of elders. Once the same kids become parents, they forget their own childhood and start torturing their own kids. I wonder why every bahu turns into a cruel saas?
There are almost 90% parents who fight everyday about silly things, forgetting that their children are around. I know a lot of children who are very delighted in the company of teachers because they are good at studies. Unfortunately, they lose interest in studies due to their unfriendly family environment. They always face a rough time at home. Such kids don’t like to talk to any of their parents. They hate their homes. They never want any friend to come to their homes.
We live in this world for happiness and comfort. When your kid hates you and goes to seek happiness outside the home, that is the time you should realise that you have failed as parents.
Let your kids do what they want. Let them play. Let them study. Let them talk. Let them grow with freedom. Trust them. Don’t make their life hell. Don’t push them to commit suicide. If you cannot do this, take a knife and cut their throats and thus set them free forever. But, please, don’t force them to die daily. Be parents in the real sense of the word. Else, murder those who want to grow on their own terms and according to their own ways.
Parents should be like close friends. We should not ever feel shy to share our worst things with them. We all are born with different talents, what we need is to express them. This is impossible without the support of parents. If parents let you do whatever you want to do, and support you when you need them most, life becomes easy. When your kid wants to do boxing, let her do it. When she comes home with a broken hand, don’t rebuke her. Appreciate her. Help her heal fast and send her back to the ring to become a boxer. Let her chase her dream. If she does not become a champion, at least she will worship and love you for supporting her to chase her dream. She will not feel ignored and marginalised at her own home.
No work is small. If your daughter wants to become a designer, let her. It should not matter if she will be the first one in your family to do it. Don’t make her life hell by asking her to do something else. Perhaps she will earn a lot of money by doing the thing you choose for her but she will always be wailing whenever she will be all alone. And this regret will distance her socially and emotionally from you.
Never compare your kids with others because it kills them internally. Making comparisons must be legally banned. It is the main reason for suicides and depression among the youth. Some are good at one thing and some are good at another thing. All cannot become doctors. Some have to become pilots, some teachers, some lawyers, some writers.
Most parents think that giving money to their kids is the only duty they have. Do these parents ever ask their kids what they do with that money? Saily communication with kids is more important than anything else which modern parents must do. It is an injustice to allow people to marry and produce kids just because they can. People should be asked to pass a screening test before granting them certificates to marry and have kids. There is a huge percentage of kids who do not suffer at the hands of strangers but at the hands of their closest relatives called ‘parents’.
To conclude, children know their capabilities. Parents must not worry about the choices children make. Let the children fly. Never make your child feel so alone that he/she will prefer death to a suffocated life. For parents, happiness of their children should be more important than money, fame, respect, career, religion, and all. Let them live with freedom or never let them take birth. Don’t force children to complete the dreams of their failed parents because the children have their own dreams which they wish to fulfil.

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Seerat Nargis Dar