“The task of raising kids can sometimes be overwhelming, essentially because parenting is technically self-thought and majority of the things learnt are through practice, experience, loads of sacrifice, then also trial and error” A single mother who was willing to be plain explained. I couldn’t have agreed more with her, after all there are no professional parents.
Even if there are courses in parenting, would they fit the distinctiveness of each child, considering that every child is unique and would apparently produce a different result to the same mode of parenting that worked out well for others?
Not all parents have subscribed to the philosophy of giving their wards a chance at expressing their individuality, while they help by guiding and curbing them from excesses and juvenile distractions. Some parents are still bent on forcing a career, course of study or in extreme cases, a particular lifestyle on their kids.
These days, young people get to discover their passion faster than it was with the older generation.
And to a large extent it shows in the involvement of young people in politics and governance and the wave of global happenings as nobody wan carry last. The desire to be heard is getting stronger by the day. And with the help of social media the limits are limited.
Here, my bone of contention lies with young adults or kids who grow up way too fast. By that I mean young people who early enough know what exactly they want to achieve in life or practically what exactly they don’t want. I’m not in any way referring to folks who neither know their left from right or who are just wasting away in juvenile delinquencies or sheer youthful exuberant.
I read the Facebook’s missing millionaires’ article lately and I was quite stunned and irritated by the story of Joe Green, a friend, roommate and hacking buddy of Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook co-founder. Green has helped Mark in creating “Facemash”, a web application that asks users to rate the attractiveness of Harvard coeds. Though this landed the two friends in trouble with the school administration, Green’s dad, a professor at UCLA, like many parents, won’t even give them a chance. Probably because he wasn’t seeing the bright side of the idea or simply because he was just trying to avoid his name being soiled. “I don’t think you should do any more of these Zuckerberg projects” he advised.
Unfortunately Green couldn’t intelligently or doggedly struggle it out with his father, rather he yielded to his father’s advice and refused to run the business side of what is now called Facebook, when Mark asked him to.
The opportunity cost of Green’s adherence in this case is the forfeiting of four to six percent of the company; a stake that would have been worth at least $3 billion today. Though Green has moved on to co-found Causes a profit oriented site that has raised $50 million in assets to help users donate to charity, yet he confessed that “every once in a while you can have a moment of bitterness,”. Anyway, he said he’s made peace with it. But what more can he actually do?!
Imagine that the sultan of software, Bill Gate wasn’t able to win his parent on the issue of his dropping out of college, despite his brilliance and the fact that his parents threatened to use up the saved money for his education for other purposes. If he did, probably I won’t be writing this article using Microsoft word.
While discussing this issue with a couple of friends, a friend with a large opinion who lamented how his mum wouldn’t allow him join the #OccupyNigeia protest in January said “if Christ had his kind of parents, out of sheer love, most likely, “pankere” (strokes of cane) would have deprived the world of having a messiah in Jesus, because at the pretty young age of twelve, when the entire family went for a festival in Jerusalem, without the knowledge of his parents, Jesus decided to stay back in Jerusalem with Jewish teachers, listening and asking them intelligent questions, which served as the starting point of his remarkable earthly mission. They searched for him for complete three days and you can imagine how devastated his parents were.”
Somehow, I’m deeply tempted to call this “holy disobedience”.
We really will never become the parent of our parents; and sincerely young people need to find intelligent ways to make them see reason. I also discovered that parents are likely to resist strongly if you take a “parent-like” stance with them on critical issues. And as a matter of fact any child who has a huge record of making series of irresponsible decisions can’t gain trust over-night. Like my friend also emphasized “trust is based on antecedent”.
You see, parents aren’t all-knowing. Sometimes they’re probably just as confused on their job as a parent as you are on your job as a kid. So it’s essential that you don’t give up your own opinions, yet, you respect theirs, even if you don’t fully agree. And in some cases you might want to review your own decisions as well.
The bottom line is that anyone who will be a world changer, will have to carry his own cross by making decisive decisions and must look out for intelligent ways that are out rightly outside the box to make parents see reasons or else….
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