Myths & Matters - 3.0 "Our children must be an Engineer or a Doctor"

Prelude:

In this series titled as "Myths and Matters" I am presenting few "Moments of Truth" that unfolds in our life as a wisdom after we suffer due to false understanding of our relationship with our loved ones or life events. When this wisdom dawns on us we have nearly finished our life and hardly left with few years to apply these wisdom to achieve peace of mind. It is prudent to learn from other's mistakes, as we may not have time to commit all of them by ourselves, as life span is insufficient to do that. In this series I briefly cover one topic at a time about the false understanding as "The Myth" and offer few suggestions under the heading "What Matters".

Please note the serial number that appears on each topic to keep track of the serial. Although there is no sequence for reading, you will be benefitted if you read these topics in sequence for best results. I shall post one topic every Sunday to keep continuity and sustain your patronage. If you find these topics useful, kindly join this blog as follower to get automatic update through your mail when I publish any new post. I would appreciate your comments at the end of this blog, which will act as a feedback for me to improve my blog in the future. Your feedback is the manure for me to continue this effort. Wish you Happy reading and peaceful life ahead.

The Myth:

One of the mental obsessions of all modern parents is to aspire that their children become either an engineer or a doctor – the so-called ‘professionally qualified’. I appreciate the anxiety to take care that our children settle down in their life with a good job and get married on time; but why only as engineer and doctor. The craze for medicine has come down marginally as not all doctors are able to neither establish a lucrative career nor get a well paying job. Strangely this obsession is seen only in India and no where else. This has become contagious and crowd behavior these days haunting the parents right from the time their child is born. To illustrate this behavior here is a real life anecdote:

  One of my friends from the south said that she was crying as though some one died in her family while her son could not get engineering admission. She was proud to say that there were more than 100 cars parked outside her house, which belongs to the people who came to console her. She said that she was rolling in the floor and crying un-consolably – normally the way people cry when someone dies in their family.

 Eventually when her son got admission in one of the private engineering colleges, she was saying, “I felt miserable to tell my friends that my son is not studying in the well known engineering college”. The boy who was very intelligent, always obsessed of becoming a movie director and cinematographer; he felt that he was born for that. He reluctantly went to the engineering college to satisfy his mother and got his engineering degree. On the day of his convocation he handed over his degree certificate to his mother and said, “Here is the degree you wanted” and pursued his movie career and eventually became what he wanted.

I could not find out the exact genesis of this obsession but I am sure that it is the result of two social developments happened in the last few decades. One of them is proliferation of private engineering colleges and the other is highly paying software engineering jobs. When I was young in sixties there were very few government-engineering colleges. The parents on those days felt that their offsprings must at least become a graduate, as engineering college admission was very difficult to get.

About two to three decades ago politicians started private engineering and medical colleges to make money in an easy way and the concept of “Capitation fee” started. Degree has become a commodity like investing in politics to rob the public money. The other event happened is the ‘Campus Interviews’ for graduate engineers by the software engineering companies. Our engineering community supposed to ‘engineer good products’ have ended up as ‘software engineers’. This migration plus “US fever” has kept the GDP growth of manufacturing companies with a stunted contribution at 27% for the last 30 years. The growth of any economy comes from manufacture and agricultural produce as all other enterprises are support services and have no independent existence. Who cares about the social needs these days, as everyone is busy in taking care of him or herself. The famous saying is “If you want IIT’ians and good Indian coffee, go to US to get it”

What Matters?

Parents are the custodians of their child with a duel responsibility; one is to secure their offspring's future and other as a citizen of the country. If every parent refuses to send their child as a Jawan or a cop, there is no way the the country can survive the onslaught of the enemy waiting to storm us. There is a social system which needs mutual contribution for survival. As parents let us re-educate our mind to relate our role with our child using the following tips:

Tip-1: There could be a Jesus in your child

There was a ‘Buddha’ hiding in Siddhartha, which ultimately manifested in spite of his father king Soddhodana's efforts to suppress. As I have mentioned in my previous topics on Myths and Matters, every human being have come to this planet with a ‘Mission’ to accomplish which is evident from the child prodigies. If not an eight-year-old child won’t sing like Latha Mangheskar unconsciously in front of large celebrities. A mango seed won’t grow as papaya tree and vice versa. Let us find out what seed is waiting to grow in our child and nurture it, as that is all the purpose of parenting.

Tip-2: Education is a passport & not a visa

Education only sharpens the learnability and provides a lead in the career as it is a “Passport and not a visa”. As leaving the country needs passport but entering the other country needs a visa. Like this, to get a job one needs a degree but to grow to higher positions needs talents which is a like a visa. As parents we need to empower our child with talents and behaviours through strong values right at the toddler stage rather than believing only degree will get them everything.

Tip-3: Society needs all talents

Lets look at this social disorder with a different lens. Like a wheel has many parts like rim, spokes, and hub, a forest needs lion, elephant, deer, snakes and the other kind of animals; then only it is forest. If it has only lions then it will perish soon. It is wrong to say that axle is more important than the spokes as all are needed to make a wheel. Similarly the human society needs all kind of skills for its perpetuity. The society is an assembly of various skills such as farmers, bankers, scientists, doctors, clerk, plumber, biotech engineers, and others. If every one is doctors and engineers the society cannot function. The civilization would not have come this far if the multi-functional skills were not available in this planet.

Tip-4: Education & position have no correlation

Most of the celebrity CEOs in the US are not from premier universities but are well known leaders who built institutions. Leadership is a state of a being and has nothing to do with the professional qualification. There is no education, which is superior or inferior to the other. If you are a commerce or science graduate you need not have to feel inferior to any other professionally qualified person. Your ability to lead has nothing to do with your basic education as all education has given only outdated information. The society has created a stigma on certain educational qualification due to ignorance.Please read my book "Pragmatic Leadership" under publication by Tata Mc Graw Hill (under print). 

Tip-5: Great people were school drop-outs

Interestingly many great achievers like Einstein and Edison are school dropouts who were heavily criticized for their lack of academic performance as no one could see the genius in them. Their IQ was so high looking for a breakthrough for mankind. They could not adjust to the history and geography, taught in the school, which were information of the past and has no significant value for what purpose they have come to this planet. This made them to think, “Education is for birds”. They belong to the category which Bernard Shaw once said, “Few people see things as they are and ask why; others see things that were not and ask why not. I belong to the later one”. May be your child belong to this community and we may be forcing it to the mundane former category.    

Tip-6: The society will always find holes – Ignore it

We always attach more importance to the thought “What people around us will think” rather than our own feelings and needs. Psychology refers this as ‘FSD – Fear of Social Disapproval” which is one of the childhood conditioning by parents making us shameful in the eyes of others. Fear of social disapproval of the parents is the cause of these social parasite due to which parents are looking for the approval of their friends and relatives for validating their children educational qualification. This is clearly a “Ghost’ which has no real existence. If we validate ourselves by the societies opinion, it shows that we have no self-esteem of our own and feeling empty internally. The so-called society is not going to do any dam for our children except this empty threat of commenting about them. Ignore it and listen to your inner voice and feelings.

In summary:

Our children are our assets and the very reason for our existence in this planet and let us not invalidate them based on their academic pursuits. Let us extend an un-conditioned love towards them and let them blossom as what they have come here for. If they have born as ‘Jasmine’, we cannot make them a ‘Rose’ and if we do, they will never be Jasmine or rose.

Many more Myths and Matters to follow.

Love

NC

Myths & Matters - 2.0 "Freedom spoils our Children"

Prelude:

In this series titled as "Myths and Matters" I am presenting few "Moments of Truth" that unfolds in our life as a wisdom after we suffer due to false understanding of our relationship with our loved ones or life events. When this wisdom dawns on us we have nearly finished our life and hardly left with few years to apply these wisdom to achieve peace of mind. It is prudent to learn from other's mistakes, as we may not have time to commit all of them by ourselves, as life span is insufficient to do that. In this series I briefly cover one topic at a time about the false understanding as "The Myth" and offer few suggestions under the heading "What Matters". Please note the serial number that appears on each topic to keep track of the serial. Although there is no sequence for reading, you will be benefitted if you read these topics in sequence for best results. I shall post one topic every Sunday to keep continuity and sustain your patronage. If you find these topics useful, kindly join this blog as follower to get automatic update through your mail when I publish any new post. I would appreciate your comments at the end of this blog, which will act as a feedback for me to improve my blog in the future. Your feedback is the manure for me to continue this effort. Wish you Happy reading & peaceful life ahead.

The Myth:

Yet another traditional story we have listened to and strongly believed was “Giving freedom to children will spoil them”. We somehow find data to reinforce this belief by sighting many drug addicts who went astray. One of the strongest fears that grip the modern day’s parents is the “Worry of their children’s future”. Those who have gone to US in pursuit of clean roads and material possessions are deeply concerned when their children are reaching their “Teens” and many of them wanted to come back as they feel India is a relatively safer place for the upbringing of their children. Strangely these are the same parents once fashionably said that their children don’t like Indian toilets when they visit for vacation.

I heard about one of the parent’s stories who live in the US. The father in his forties have ground half of his teeth while sleeping out of stress due to the worry of his children which shows how deep subconscious these feelings are. Alas! Where are we heading? We want the material of US and values of India – strange combination! Ironically Indians are moving towards the west and they are coming to India for learning tranquility.

In the modern era parents provide cell phone to their children as they believe they can track the where about of their offspring’s. I belong to the “Older generation” as I have transitioned from the pre-independence era to the space age in my lifetime. Probably I have lived during the most revolutionary technology age from gramophone to smart phone. Many parents fear when their child is closing the door and sitting in the computer as the Internet has done as much damage to mankind as value creation as any technology; it is a double edged sword. These days television, missed calls and SMS create as much menace in the children life distracting from the main agenda of their development.

What Matters?

When we grew up we felt suffocated by the monitoring of our parents and wanted to run away from their clutches to a land of freedom. I agree when we were toddlers we needed frequent change of diapers and feeding or else we would have died. But the problem is we forget our own feelings when we grew up and thrust many dogmas and rules upon our children. Think for a moment about us – we also gave enough trouble to our parents but when we transitioned to adulthood to middle age, we became so responsible (except few of course!). 

As the civilization progresses more and more information explosion will take place which is accessible to the growing children. When I was young all that I knew was where the village ends is the end of this planet. On the other hand please see the modern day’s children; they are more informed and aware of many things. Worrying about our children is like sitting in a rocking chair – it keeps you busy but does not take you anywhere. Some tips to overcome this worry and get into actions:

Tip-1: Teach Principles when they are young

In the formative years the small child absorbs values in an un-conditional manner, as it has no filters. Conditioning of the militants proves this, which is always on very young children. Please teach principle centricity through epics (Parables, Ramayana and Mahabharata) and you will be surprised they will become value-based children when they grow. When my children were very young, I used to make it a point to read and share good thoughts from the books I used to read. Although they yawn and feel sleepy it had deep impact on their character. Now they are grown and used to say “Dad when you read from books it appeared that we did not understand; but now we feel all of them have sunk into our sub-conscious and guide us now in our life.

Tips-2: Plants grow & flower blossom on their own

You cannot make a flower to blossom by force, as it is a natural process. If you put a seed and pour water, it will germinate on its own as the seed has the intelligence to sense the ambience. If you are curious and disturb the seed by digging and checking out whether it is growing, it will die. On the other hand if you pour more water or manure thinking it will grow faster, then also it will die. The only way you can see the seed become a seed link; plant and tree later to bear fruit, you have to be patient and facilitate rather than suffocate. Your child is also like the seed, which has come to this planet with infinite possibility, and you should nurture and facilitate rather than stifle its flow.

Tip-3: Be a coach and not a Master

“The plants don’t grow under banyan tree” is the old adage, which means that excessive shade kills the plant. Similarly parents who are over protective have killed the originality of their children. Their intention is not bad but their process is. I always find the children whose parents have behaved like a coach and mentor love to stay with them but the ones whose parents were tyrant have disappeared. Be a resource for their growth and never think we are more intelligent than them because we are their parents.

Tip-4: Don’t try to possess them

I may sound philosophical if I say “Don’t be possessive of your child as it has come to this planet to fulfill the divine intent”. The feeling of possession always causes trouble. If you have feeling of possession, then you start controlling it. No one likes to be controlled in this planet; check out your own feeling when someone tries to control you. Please read my previous topic where I have covered my commentary on prophet Khalil Kibran’s poem about our children.

Many More Myths to follow

Love

NC  

   

Myths & Matters - 1.0 "Our children belongs to us"

Prelude:

In this series titled as "Myths & Matters" I am presenting few "Moments of Truth" that unfolds in our life as a wisdom after we suffer due to false understanding of our relationship with our loved ones or life events. When this wisdom dawns on us we have nearly finished our life and hardly left with few years to apply these wisdom to achieve peace of mind. It is prudent to learn from other's mistake as we may not have time to commit all of them by ourselves as life span is insufficient to do that. In this series I briefly cover one topic at a time about the false understanding as "The Myth" and offer few suggestions under the heading "What Matters". Please note the serial number that appears on each topic to keep track of the serial. Although there is no sequence for reading, you will be benefitted if you read these topics in sequence for best results. I shall post one topic every Sunday to keep continuity and sustain your patronage. If you find these topics useful, kindly join this blog as follower to get automatic update through your mail when I publish any new post. I would appreciate your comments at the end of this blog which will act as a feedback for me to improve my blog in the future. Your feedback is the manure for me to continue this effort. Wish you Happy reading & peaceful life ahead.

The moment of Truth:

Human beings are believed to be in existence in this planet for millions of years and in the name of civilization we have been passing on our believes to the next generation. I presume that thousands of years ago there was no religion and all human beings lived in harmony when they were living closer to the nature exactly conforming to the laws of nature. In fact animals seem to be in a state of harmony as compared to human as it has no freedom to live in any other way. But human beings can make choices, which animals cannot. In reality are we really exercising this freedom? Not really as we are governed by the “paradigms” which are formed by the “Stories” we heard and conditioned ourselves that way. We have a storehouse of “Myths” in our bosom that runs our life.

Many of this belief are based on what we heard from our parents, teachers, religious gurus, listening to epics and social interactions during our formative years. Our personality is nothing but expression of these believes which manifests as our behaviours thus personality. Our peace and tranquility is decided to a large extent due to these believes which we can call as “Paradigms”. In each country we find different “old stories” held for ages, which forms the foundation of their culture. We call them as “Myths”. Referring to the dictionary we find the meaning of ‘Myth’ as “a traditional story, esp. one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events”

As the name implies ‘Myths’ have no real existence but make a lots of difference in our life in terms of our actions and hence the results. In this new series I would like to deal with these ‘Myths’ with a hope that it will make a difference in our life in terms of peace of mind. I titled this series as “Myths & Matters” as Myths really don’t matter if we look at them in the right perspectives. In this series I wish to deal with our traditional believes and challenge them with a different perspective. Seeing things with a different lens in it can alter our life dramatically and that is the aim of this series.

The Myth:

“Our Children belongs to us”

Let me start with a very controversial topic of the traditional belief that “Our children belong to us”. One of the ‘Myths’ is the attachment we suffer due to the strong feeling that our children belongs us as they have born to us. When they were small, we as a parent control them and take all the decisions on their behalf such as what food to feed, dress to wear, which school to study and so on. As they grow at some point in time they become independent and start hating our controls. As Rajneesh once said “If your child says no to you, check their date of birth and you will find they are in their Teen’s”. This is a devastating experience for many parents who derived power by controlling their children.

When our children want to leave the parents and go to another country to live or marry someone of their choice or live alone with their wife, as parents we feel devastated thinking that they are ditching us. When we reach old age we want our children to be with us or at our bedside when we die. The bonding is so strong that it never allows us to let go. You may think that all these are “but natural” and wondering why we are discussing it. That is the power of the “Myths”.

When the son gets married a new girl coming from some other family, few mothers only treat her as their daughter; but they expected their daughter to be treated by her mother-in-law that way. The psychology is; the mother of the boy feels that the new girl walked-in snatched her son away from her hands. This is the problem of not willing to let go some one whom we want to control forever. We chose to perform marriage to our son thinking that he needs an emotional companion as we will disappear from the planet soon and he needs some one to take care of him. If that is the motive he can hire a servant to do his daily chores! We have conflicting requirements and suffer due to the ‘Myth’, which is the main topic of this chapter. The old adage says, “Children never grow in the eyes of their parents” Looking back to our life history with our own parents we did the same what our children does with us.

What Matters?

Now let us see what really ‘Matters’ seeing through another lens. In creation one of the strongest instinct is ‘protecting the off-springs’ as we see all animals protect their young ones till they are on their own. Strangely all species take care of themselves soon after coming out of their mother’s womb – a fish swims, a calf walks, a snake finds its prey soon after they are born and so on. Only human beings cannot take care of themselves and needs their mother to ensure that we are alive till such a time we can take care of ourselves. The emotions and bonding is so strong and natural but the problem lies in letting go as the children grow.

The child in its mothers womb is fed through the umbilical chord and kept alive till it comes out to this world. But the first thing the doctor does is cutting the umbilical chord soon after the child is out into the world if not we would die. This symbolically shows that the connection with the child needs to be severed for its survival and growth. Although the mother disconnected the umbilical chord but she is still connected with the “emotional chord”. Learning form the other species that forcibly detaches themselves from their offsprings as they progressively become independent, we stifle the natural growth of our children in the name of love and attachment.

In variably we want to make all choices for our children including what educational stream to choose. Often we want them to do what we missed in our life. Is it not ridiculous to relive our life through our children? Khalil Kibran one of the greatest philosopher gave a wonderful wisdom, which transformed my relationship with my children and my peace of mind. I recommend the same to you to consider. Here is the essence of Khalil Kibran’s poem about children:

Kibran says that your children are like the ‘Dart’ and the parents are like the bow. The archer is the divine essence of this universe, which has an agenda to keep the human race to prevail and hence driving procreation.

He says, “your children are the result of the cosmic intelligence’s plan to persist the human species which has chosen you as the medium to create them and you are a fool to think that they belong to you since they came through you” He continues “They are like a dart and you are a bow. Just because the bow is used as the medium to launch the dart, it has no control once the dart leaves the bow as the archer has a target for the bow. You are trying to control your children is like the bow trying to direct the dart once it left!”

What prophet Kibran says may sound philosophical but very profound wisdom for understanding the reality of our connection with our children. This gives us clarity and let go our children to blossom like a bird with five senses pushes its little ones to explore the vast sky. Tendulkar has born to master cricket and Latha Mangheskar born to master music. Their parents could never inverse their role because that is what the “Archer” decided them to do.

Let go of your children to find who they are & why they are here in this universe and live with peace of mind.

Other Myths & Matters follws.

Love

NC