By NaSa
Ridhaan (5) is crazy about aeroplanes and helicopters. Be it Christmas or his birthday he just wants these two things as gifts/toys. So firm is his choice in toys that all the colours, variety and glitter of a toy shop seem to failing to deter it. He, being the youngest in the family is the most pampered one. His wish is command for everybody else in the family. Priorities are arranged and re-arranged by the family members as per his wants and requirements. Ridhaan is being given the best of schooling possible, the best of dresses possible, the best of food possible and the best of care possible. And it’s not just the case with Ridhaan. All his friends too are pampered either equally or more than him.
There’s a trend that is being noticed. More and more people in the upper middle class strata are increasingly choosing the single-child family model, which is why all their care and concern is concentrated on their only child. Parents want to do everything possible to make the lives of their children a bed of roses. And most of the parents believe that they are getting successful in their mission because they have a parameter of measuring success – competition with peers. Parents look around, compare their wards with children of their peers in terms of the tags of brands that they’ve got for their kids and if the number of brands are at par with half of their peers and more than that of other half, they are assured of their success.
The next thing parents care about is the professional success of their children. They want to see their children earning well, driving luxury cars, living in luxury apartments or mansions. Parents want their kids to go way ahead of how far the parents themselves have been able to come; who wouldn’t want it when this is what parenting has always been about? The present generation passes on its legacy and estate to the future generation, which then aims to multiply it tenfold.
But what if the legacy is pollution? If parents remain busy only in accumulating wealth and brands for children and government remains busy in playing the blame game of its failures who will care about the air we breathe? Who will care about the ecology? In fact, here, in the context of protecting the environment, the role of individuals is far more crucial than the role of organizations or government. We as individuals have to be agile and responsible enough to agitate the governments to take up on priority the cause of environment or our survival, so to speak.
However, we ourselves are lethargic and hypocrites. I see a deep contrast in our saying and doing. On one hand we make posters of ‘say no to crackers’ on the other hand we become helpless when our kids demand crackers and we buy them crackers even as they worsen children’s health. On one hand we help make kids posters on ‘save Earth’ or make our kids plant trees or plants on their birthdays on the other hand we give them as many papers as they want to waste and spill over. On one hand we ask our kids to leave laptops and go for cycling, on the other hand we drop them to school on cars even if it’s just 100 meters away.
If we look around closely, we can come up with more impressive examples. Surely there can be more impressive way to put the point across as well. But it’s a shame that no impressive measure has been taken as yet to reverse the effect of the evil we have done to our once pure environment.
Paris summit 2015 claims to have taken the necessary steps in this direction but the clock had started ticking way before. I wish we catch up with the time before it flies that can only be done when the efforts come from each and every individual including you and I.
Image credit: Pixabay
aptly summed in words…environment education is so very important!!
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