I think as for parents pushing children to be achievers in
academics-we need to understand a fundamental issue. In China and India,
population is the villain- limited resources but too much clamouring for
them. It’s a simple demand supply problem. Education- read academic scores, is therefore a means to an end- to get jobs, to earn well, to get
basic comforts like decent housing, khana peena etc. Here, we can’t take
any of these for granted. Therefore the sooner you join the rat race, the
better. More so in India, with nearly 85% of seats in colleges
reserved under sc/st/backward/obc/physically handicapped/sports/ wounded
in war/ freedom fighter/ refugee/sons of the soil/armed forces/artistic
achievers/economically weaker/ below poverty line ‘bpl’ etc. and even
the rest given away under management quota (euphemism for paid seats),
merit seat means a distant dream for a middle class student. If u want a
decent life, you need a good degree from a good college of repute- for that you need to get 100 percentile, plus be an Arjun/Viswanathan Anand/Abdul Kalam/AR Rehman all rolled into one. Parents at the end of the day want
to ensure that your future is not ruined for want of marks in your exams. They push you because very few children today are serious about
pursuing anything of substance. They will not touch the textbooks unless
there is a test or a project. They have all the distractions to indulge
in (which our generation didn’t have).They would rather watch a cricket
match than play one. They would rather play cricket than do
homework. Studies is their last priority- this is true of most
households. No parent would want to torture the child if they could help
it.
In India, education is an investment for the future. One can’t afford to squander it away. Nobody is going to offer u a nice job looking at how happy you were as a child or at how well you recite poems or how understanding your parents were to have allowed you to sleep or watch TV or play while your fellow students burnt the midnight oil. The bottom line ( for want of a better evaluation of one’s merits) therefore is grades. One really can’t blame the parents. India maybe is the only country where parents mortgage their home (maybe the only thing they ever have as their security) or take a loan to educate their children. They spend another bomb for support services like tuition, tennis coaching, dance arangetram. As if this is not enough, they also lose sleep to lend moral support to the child who’s up late slogging for his exams.They bunk office to stay with the child during exams- it’s not as if the parents are hitlers out to massacre their child’s aspirations. Sadly, they are as much the victims in this rat race-I would even say they are the martyrs who do a thankless job.
I think I have said enough in defence of why they do what they do. So all you mothers who have children in Stanford/Berkley/Phd/engineering/medicine- you are welcome to ignore my rantings. My children, I am not sure if they’ll score laurels in academics/sports/music/arts- at least they haven’t shown any such signs yet- but I’m not going to lose my sleep over that. Not to say, I didn’t provide the opportunities to explore. If life’s choices are a process of elimination, then at least I know what they won’t pursue.
Now the second part: How can a parent spoil the child’s ‘present’ for what the ‘future’ may or may not hold? When a child fails to get admission in a good college inspite of slogging all through his school life and ends up contemplating the unthinkable or lands in a college where the scum of the society hold sway, the parents have a double burden. They have to console the child , watch over him lest he try something unthinkable, tell him things will be okay eventually and have a guilty conscience that they snatched the ‘childhood’ from him.
Does it mean a parent should let go of control? And if such a child who hasn’t been pushed to perform, gets a below average score and has no job offers or is just not employable, will he still be happy-that I had a gala time as a student, what if others have BE or CA or MBA and paying jobs?
So what is the moral of the story- if there is one at all? Does the end justify the means?
In India, education is an investment for the future. One can’t afford to squander it away. Nobody is going to offer u a nice job looking at how happy you were as a child or at how well you recite poems or how understanding your parents were to have allowed you to sleep or watch TV or play while your fellow students burnt the midnight oil. The bottom line ( for want of a better evaluation of one’s merits) therefore is grades. One really can’t blame the parents. India maybe is the only country where parents mortgage their home (maybe the only thing they ever have as their security) or take a loan to educate their children. They spend another bomb for support services like tuition, tennis coaching, dance arangetram. As if this is not enough, they also lose sleep to lend moral support to the child who’s up late slogging for his exams.They bunk office to stay with the child during exams- it’s not as if the parents are hitlers out to massacre their child’s aspirations. Sadly, they are as much the victims in this rat race-I would even say they are the martyrs who do a thankless job.
I think I have said enough in defence of why they do what they do. So all you mothers who have children in Stanford/Berkley/Phd/engineering/medicine- you are welcome to ignore my rantings. My children, I am not sure if they’ll score laurels in academics/sports/music/arts- at least they haven’t shown any such signs yet- but I’m not going to lose my sleep over that. Not to say, I didn’t provide the opportunities to explore. If life’s choices are a process of elimination, then at least I know what they won’t pursue.
Now the second part: How can a parent spoil the child’s ‘present’ for what the ‘future’ may or may not hold? When a child fails to get admission in a good college inspite of slogging all through his school life and ends up contemplating the unthinkable or lands in a college where the scum of the society hold sway, the parents have a double burden. They have to console the child , watch over him lest he try something unthinkable, tell him things will be okay eventually and have a guilty conscience that they snatched the ‘childhood’ from him.
Does it mean a parent should let go of control? And if such a child who hasn’t been pushed to perform, gets a below average score and has no job offers or is just not employable, will he still be happy-that I had a gala time as a student, what if others have BE or CA or MBA and paying jobs?
So what is the moral of the story- if there is one at all? Does the end justify the means?
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