The rich have money, and so they have little to worry about. The poor have almost nothing, and so they have even less to be merry about. But it is the one in between — the middle class — who goes through the real chaos. Brought up in a working-class family: dad working hard every day, mum holding the home together, and our duty simply to obey our parents and honour the demands of the society around us.
I am glad that, despite the hardships, we grew up understanding the value of things — and respecting our parents for what they sacrificed to make us who we are today. But it truly saddens me, and it is a genuine cause for concern, to see how children are raised now. I see modern-day parents whose parenting methods have swung to extremes. Their love for their children is, ironically, weakening them — leaving them without the inner frameworks they will need to navigate a demanding world. Today’s kids begin to rebel at the age of five. Blame the parents for letting things fall free. Perhaps because they want to give their children the very best, they fail to understand that making everything too convenient teaches a child nothing. Life is not a rainbow on which you go ice skating.
I write this because of a particular incident that happened recently in my apartment building. I had just returned from a long meeting — a hard day at work — and I had forgotten my keys. I rang the bell and waited for someone to open the door. While I stood there, I could hear the neighbour’s fifteen-year-old daughter yelling at her mother. It was as though something had possessed her — words that I have genuinely never heard come out of a child’s mouth.
“You f***ing b***h, you have no right to ask me what I’m doing. You f***ing a**hole, stay out of my business! I will pour gasoline and burn you while you sleep. I will cut you in two.”
I was banging on my own apartment door, desperate for someone to let me in. I wanted to shut myself inside and block it all out. Because it frightened me — genuinely frightened me — to think that these are the people who will one day run the world. It won’t be zombies we have to fear. It will be these children, turning against us for doing the right thing — or for what they have decided is the wrong thing.
In that moment, I tried to put myself in the mother’s shoes. The day she held that baby in her arms, kissed her on the forehead, and prayed for her to be gentle, kind, and forever loving. The day she made a silent promise to protect her and offer her the best of life. And now this is what that prayer has become.
I thought of how we were raised. If we so much as thought about answering back to our parents, the next moment they would not have hesitated to show us the door. The fear of losing their love — of being without the only two people in the world who truly cared — kept us grounded. That fear was not cruelty. It was a kind of love we were too young to understand.
That respect, that commitment from one human being to another, taught me what is truly important and how one must value things in life.
To all the parents reading this: in the name of love, do not destroy your children. They are shaped by everything they see and hear, and right now they are absorbing the bad and filtering out the good. I am not suggesting you raise your children like an Amish household. But when you give them something — anything — make them understand its value. Relate it to life. When your child throws food at your face, let them go hungry for a meal so they understand what it means for a child out there to pray that someone throws a piece of bread at them. Sometimes, tough love and necessary boundaries are the most honest gifts you can offer.
Consider it, if only because you care about raising a good human being.
