Please protect your children from overwhelming rot

 

THANK you dear readers of ‘Loud Thinking’ for a positive and profuse response to the last week’s edition under the same title. Thank you very much for showing a fair understanding of what could be happening to our youngsters if we did not pay attention to blocking the silent invasion on their innocent and unsuspecting personalities. The response raises the hope that together all of us can save our children from undue and un called for and immoral influences that seek sly entries into their mindsets through crass consumerism and gross politicisation of distorted social narrative. The trouble, dear parents, is in our lack of awareness of what could be actually and silently invading our kids’ minds. There are ugly and grossly undesirable contents on their smart phones and computers. There are very dirty ideas stumbling out of their gadgets’ screens. There is anti-India propaganda arriving in torrents into their digital memory-domains. There is sheer pornography being fed to them day in and day out through multiple channels that we may not even know to be existing. And we, parents, are mostly unaware of all this silent invasion of our kids minds. There also is another and far more dangerous and sly input being fed to our children’s minds. That is as regards traditionally-held principles of morality and ethics.

 

Through this poisoned narrative, the kids are encourage to seek what is described as ‘personal freedom’ as against the beautiful collectivism of the family. Very craftily, our children are fed with ideas such as ‘living on one’s own terms’ (what does that exactly mean? -- if we may ask); ‘making your own choice’ about smoking tobacco or consuming alcohol or taking drugs or other banned substances; or ‘freedom to see’ any film on any subject; or ‘chatting as you wish’ on various social media platforms. Some of these crafty narratives even go to the extent of urging children to take their own decisions and ignore the sane counsel from the family elders including parents ... ! Does this all not sound very dangerous? It does, and hence this attempt to share a word of caution against such psychological and spiritual invasion of our children’s minds. But wait, there is something more to share at this point. It concerns India’s glorious history. For many decades, pseudo-liberals (known these days as ‘liberandus’) have been denigrating India’s ancient history with glorious details.

 

As per that narrative, everything that belonged to ancient India or its history was passe and therefore to be discarded. It was out of that narrative that the modern Indian society was made to suspect the genuineness of Indic wisdom proven through ages. Our youngsters, too, are being fed with similar narratives these days through multiple platforms and channels about whose existence we know almost nothing. And an extension of this narrative is that our children must be sent to foreign universities the moment they pass out of their schools. So, we have literally countless thousands of families spending massive amounts of money to send their teen-age kids to universities abroad -- believing that the Indian education is something lesser, something lower than what is available in foreign universities. So, send the kids abroad -- by spending huge amounts of money. And, to be almost sure, countless numbers among such children choose to settle abroad. It is all right for the fashionable segments of the society to claim credit for their kids’ studying abroad at tender ages. But in the long term, this trend has many negative social implications whose ill-effects we have already begun to see and sense.

 

There are many other aspects of this silent invasion, but those may be discussed at a later stage. Suffice it to say at this stage that it is time for Indian parents to sit up alert and take notice of the silent invasion of the innocent minds of their children. OF COURSE, countering such a massive psychological invasion of our kids’ minds is not an easy task -- if seen from the statistical angle (as countless lakhs of our kids are already affected by the ugly negativism that is being fed to them day in and day out without our knowledge). But the counter can be effected quite easily since the family needs to work only on its own children at the start. So, the best way is to take charge of our kids’ mind by engaging them in an ongoing family interaction that does not get halted at any point -- of grief or grandeur. Stay engaged with our kids all the time. Allow them enough freedom to make friends, mix with their peers, give them freedom of movement for right causes. But may all this freedom be allowed by keeping a vigil on our children unknown to them. And, frankly, this is no big task, provided the parents or family elders draw up a conscious programme of engaging the children in a continuous dialogue -- on every possible subject under the Sun -- and even beyond. If this is achieved on the family level, the negative narrative can be countered effectively. (To be continued)