A friend wrote a status message on her facebook wall... As has become the ritual of most people, me not excluded, I went and read the updates on FB this morning. Clearly the above message being fairly intriguing, I could not stop myself from responding and reacting. It was a natural reaction and I wrote following comment.
"And the outcome is in most cases - depression (benign or malignant form, scale of 1-10). Sounds depressing but thats the reality! Insecurity lies underneath lot of these instincts.. We have to grow-up ourselves first and kill those instincts and teach kids to do the same. Well I can go on and on..."
And I really kept on thinking and realizing what I just wrote. The thought made me think of the more wider and global situation and how society is and has changed in the past years. When we were kids, the middle-class society in India was struggling to make ends meet. My parents as an example had most of their energy spent in making a living and dealing with social and family problems. To pay attention to what classes kids were enrolled had no time and interest. As long as we were enrolled in school and he paid the fees, my dads duty was done. I don't face even 10% of the social and family problems they faced. Although, I am a full-time engineer my job is only 10% as stressful as used to be my Dads. Clearly times have changed and so have we.
I had read this research few days ago called -- The hygiene hypothesis: People are being exposed to far fewer microbes (bacteria and viruses that cause disease and infection), so their immune systems have shifted to allergy-fighting. In developed countries where we have vaccines, antibiotics, clean water, clean houses and smaller families, the immune system doesn't have as much to do when it comes to fighting disease. Then it starts producing allergy antibodies to things like cats or dust or food items.
I want to make a similar correlation to the psychological condition. This is what I call -- The mental hygiene hypothesis: We are exposed to much less problems today than earlier times. With fewer kids, less of financial worries, no aging parents or relatives, and we have skillfully stayed away are trying to lessen any traditional, social and religious burdens, thus having lot of spare time and energy. We use lot of our saved energy in worrying about kids and their progress. "I have everything, I should be ahead" thought makes us feel insecure and we run behind that thought mindlessly.
Far more than before, today we as a middle class society, need to take a pause. Bring on things inside your home that can occupy your family time in a more uplifting way than sending kids to classes. Listening to music together, watching games and movies together, spending time with grandparents as much as possible are few things which will make kids life richer than anything else. They really don't need expensive vacations to exotic destinations instead a short visit to relatives and grandparents will in my view make their life balanced. I am pretty sure eventually lot of the families settled in US will realize the importance of providing the extended family influence once they have kids as second or third generation US citizens. If we don't do that, we will soon lose our cultural heritage and become the standard American family which as you know is scrambling to find social and family values.
This may or may not be true in all cases, just a thought from my side. Each individual owns his own personality and destiny. Parents are a part of the eco-system and should consider them that way. Providing a safe, healthy, peaceful environment is what we own. We can to some extent influence the initial years of the child but by and large we really cannot alter the personality and grasp of kids.
