More often than not, Bangladesh seems to be a failed state, with no telltale signs of improvement. Some might argue we are a young nation that needs more time to settle down, that being in a land of plenty had made us less enterprising, and a subservient nature was cultured by the long colonization. Others may counter with the boom of the garments sector and statistics of per capita income, national growth or GDP. All the same, the earlier we do the SWOT analysis, the faster we can step on the path of progress.
After much soul-storming and brain-searching, the meaning of the phrase 'People get the government they deserve' hit home. The problem lies within us, the people of this nation. For all political party members are part of the nation only, and the organizations and businesses that engage the rest of the national workforce are not providing quality products and services either. Sure every country has its corrupt politicians and fraud businessmen, but they are an elite minority. In this golden land, anyone at any job can be described, in one word, as irresponsible, not only corrupt. We do not own up to the career choices we have made and hence become inefficient, greedy and egoistical. The cancer of incompetence is present across all social, economic, educational, religious and regional classes.
Nineteenth century Bengal was a unique blend of religious and social reformers, scholars, literary giants, journalists, patriotic orators and scientists, all merging to form the image of a renaissance, and marked the transition from the 'medieval' to the 'modern'. So the anthropological explanation of our irresponsible nature is not well grounded. Remembering that this is the same nation that brought about the language movement and won one of the bloodiest of independence wars, it is reasonable to say that something has gone wrong recently, perhaps only 2 to 3 generations back.
The hypothesis is that parenting has failed. Today’s personnel are yesterday’s children- children who did not grew up with unfaltering moral values, children who do not have enough confidence and self-esteem to improve the situations they find themselves in today. It is not that they were not taught the right values; of course we love our children and want to impart the best to them. But the teachings have been seldom effective. It is the teaching methods or, in other words, child upbringing techniques that need to be revamped. Two possible reasons are generally ascribed to the worldwide shift in parenting skills recognition. The breakdown of the joint family due to urbanization and globalization meant that the new parents and child had less experienced guidelines, less care and less family time, and the fast changing times- every generation is exposed to newer things and expected of advanced thoughts and skills, so their parenting needs are also advanced. In addition, the economic effects of partition, continued political struggles and the lack of focus on parent duties in Islam may have deepened the chasm for Bangladeshis. We have embraced family planning (in some levels) but we have not recognized the parallel need of parenting.
Parenthood consists of more than child care. Parenting is the process of promoting and supporting the physical, emotional, social, and intellectual development of a child from infancy to adulthood. There is ample research in Developmental Psychology to relate the effects that parents have on child behavior and skills. Good parenting raises adults with healthy and positive personalities, armored to face the challenges of the world. Bad parenting causes low-self-esteem; these adults either tend to give up due to lack of confidence or try to prove themselves by resorting to unethical/false means. Or they turn to drugs, religion, self-righteousness, parenting, relationships, or some other outlet which provides them an opportunity to distract themselves from their own issues. All these are the people we see in and around us.
UNICEF’s Convention on the Rights of the Child sets out the rights that must be realized for children to develop their full potential, free from hunger and want, neglect and abuse. As children are totally dependent on parents specially in the most formative early years, it becomes the parents responsibility to ensure the child's rights. Bangladeshi parents are inclined to escapism when it comes to the child's behavioral and intellectual development, and conveniently ascribe them to nature and fate. They do not acknowledge that their interaction in the family affects the child, and even external factors like immediate society and environment is directly the parent’s choice. Even the highly educated society is mostly unaware or unsympathetic to the modern parenting concepts, at times picking only one or two random and hence incomplete maxims. The most important thing to realize about parenting is that the mere lack of good parenting results in bad parenting.
The time has come to license parents. To fill the existing chasm and break the vicious circle of incompetence, parents should be exposed to and prepared for the full scope of their chosen duties. Parents seeking access to new reproductive technologies (AID, IVF, surrogacy) and adoption must read and understand information about the risks, responsibilities and implications of what they are undertaking; and they must undergo counseling that addresses their values and goals. To win child custody in a divorce, the parents have to demonstrate in court their parental competence including knowledge of child-rearing, various personal qualities such as patience and sensitivity, their availability to the children, and so on. These expectations should be required of all parents.
In a country struggling with child malnutrition, street children, child labor and gender discrimination, it is more important that the future white-collar workforce be raised with the self-esteem to combat the existing setbacks. Parenting awareness is of course needed at all socioeconomic levels and can be taken on as a family planning perspective thereby addressing issues of over-population and illiteracy. While mass education is a large and distant goal, parenting awareness in the case critical educated class is much more easily achievable. Relevant courses should be introduced in undergraduate studies, and in the marriage registration process. At the very least, new parents should by law be required to attend child development classes.
We have to be careful though to avoid the fate of mass education that, according to Noam Chomsky, is designed to turn independent farmers into docile, passive tools of production. To ensure individuality and diversity, the courses should be targeted to make would be parents aware of the scope of their responsibilities in light of child psychology. They should serve to make the parents well prepared and equipped for the child's need in the different stages of its lifespan, and aware of maternal and child physical and mental health issues. Parents then would be able to consciously decide on their parenting models, tools, philosophies and practices.
References
- Bangladesh in numbers
- Bengal Renaissance
- Child Development Theories
- Self-Esteem : What it is, Where it Comes From, and Why we Need it. Steve Hein
- Parenting Children: How to Raise Good Kids in Today's Society
- The Good Enough Child
- Positive Parenting Is Effective Parenting
- How To Behave so your children will, too!
- UPF International : Marriage and Family Education
- Licensing Parents
- The Inconsistency of Not Licensing Parents
2 comments:
A friend was talking about working in a place where people are backbiting and polishing apples, where my response was that those that resort to behavior like that are insecure and unable to fix in their head an idea of a symbiotic environment where its not a race of individuals, but of a team or group towards a common goal.
I don't know how far companies go to harness behavior like that, but I do know that we are taught to race from our school days - good results, top of the class - etc. were to be attained. Parents would check not just how their kid was doing on grades, but also how others are, and also push on things like private tutors and study regimes.
Interesting post.
Unfortunately we can't seem to gain something without losing something. Eg, Women are gaining more and more rights in the work place, which they were deprived of for long, but often at the expense of children losing their rights for adequate nurturing in the early years. And with families living as single units, children are left in the hands of uncaring, untrained and uneducated workers who come and go, with some or no level of supervision from ailing grandparents. Children spend their days stuck in cars being driven from one destination to another. At home they are subjected to hours of babysitting by the TV. Do they get adequate emotional input this way? No wonder they grow up to be corrupt, uncaring adults. In fact, this social trend is not just applicable to Bangladesh but all developed nations. With erosion of family values, a sick society emerges. As is apparent from the riots in the UK.
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