What Parents Face Today

What Parents Face Today It is for this reason that pampered children cannot meet the challenges they have to face in the external world. Once I met two Indian boys, both graduates, who said that they found themselves in difficult circumstances. When they were at home, they were living under the protection of their parents, who were always ready to provide anything they wanted. But now that they had left their homes and wanted to find a place in the external world, they felt unloved and unwanted. Their homes had been ready to give them everything free of cost, but now they found that the external world was quite different. Here everything had its price in terms of hard work, adjustment, acceptance of reality, proving their ability and making compromises. They found that at home they had not been trained to meet such challenges. This is what is negative about pampering. Parents’ pampering is like making a product that is not wanted in the market. Parents must come to understand that their children need a double education – a professional education as well as spiritual training. The former kind of education can be had in educational institutions but the centre for the latter kind is the home. And parents are the teachers in this home institution. But parents must realize that the language of dos and don’ts will not serve the purpose. They must prepare themselves for a more sensitive and complex approach. Indeed, they must ground themselves in what may be called rational spirituality.