KIDS-SANS-NATION

                                                  

 A famous actor on an Indian television chat show recently declared- I am not going to have kids; not because I don’t like them but because I think that there is already so much happening in the world that there is no place left for kids to come in.

For a moment, it felt like any other celebrity trying to make an avante garde statement but on prolonged subsequent thoughts, I realized he was right in saying so. The world has indeed become disparate for more kids to come in.

Let us reason this.

Procreation may have been a need once but with the ever increasing population, it has only become a quaint social norm that we can do without. The plight of the kids is pitiable. The next time you pass across a bunch of school going kids, stop for a moment, observe, reminisce and answer- Do they look half as happy as you used to when you were a kid?

The answer is No. For people our age, school was where the fun was. Of course, the whole curriculum revolved around academics yet the pressure never surmounted to sub-human levels. Unfortunately, the picture has become lopsided now. A five year old goes to school carrying a bag as heavy as his own weight.  A ten year old is grinded each day to learn to work harder than he possibly can and logically should. A fifteen year old is subjugated to learn C++ (a language which was introduced to only IT professionals till a few years back). At first, it is about scoring well in the metric exams. The next climb is to qualify for a carrier that gets you good money, ricochets your parent’s respect and establishes you as a “man of worth” in the society. The truth is that if you cannot outshine everyone else at every step of life, you will be labeled an “average” and the world today is no place for the “averages”.

Why do we procreate? The most obvious answer is because we wish to survive ourselves through our children; through our name that they bear. Is it right to bring a life into this already messed up world for the sake of carrying a name forward? I think the answer is no. However, though a name may or may not need survival; the world needs to survive. So, children are inevitability. What is the solution then?

The amount of pressure that is put on children these days would lead to dire consequences. Virtues of life will be replaced by blatant acceptance of much needed vices essential for survival in this overtly competent world. Both education and lifestyle needs to be reviewed and corrected. The present scenario is a disturbing one. However, since change needs time, I propose a more temporary solution. There are about 22 million orphans in India. Instead of creating more life on this planet; let us make better the life that already exists. Adopt a child. Provide an orphan with a home. Give him a name; your name. Provide him with a kind of education and upbringing that would help him stand against the tide and make the world a place suitable enough to bring more children.

"Our family never shared the same last name

 But our family was a family just the same

 And they say blood is thicker than water

Oh, but love is thicker than blood."