The title of our blog today may appear self- contradictory. In fact, it may anger a few self-declared champions of childhood. Ever since the Romantics like Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge glorified its heavenly proximity to godliness, it is quite fashionable to idolise childhood.
Well, my submission today is that it is not exactly easy to be a child these days. In fact, currently childhood is tough. Indeed! Let us explore a few facets of this curious but factual statement.
Let us begin with family. Mostly, it is the nuclear family these days. A child is hardly allowed the warmth of relationships. Grandparents do not enjoy the unique status of yesteryears. If at all they are in the 'one bhk' flat, they are more a convenience, an unpaid cook cum nanny. Most often than not, the relationship is so fraught between the two generations that the baby of the family is more a punching bag.
The doting aunt, the caring uncle, the bunch of cousins are rarely parts of the child's experience these days, given the busy, fast pace of life and the huge distances between places, and people obsessed with the 'i, me, my' spaces. A WhatsApp group is an easier, better proposition for the shadow shallow presences.
Often, an only child, kids today do not know the sibling bond. Parents often supplement quality time which they rarely can spare with costly gifts that actually lose their sheen-n-glamour quotient within a fortnight. Pets are soon a burden!
The silly serials on the television, the violent games on the game console or on very many apps, the unwanted adult world encroaching childhood via the internet, childhood is a lonely and tough space these days. Let us not even mention the ubiquitous depravities that threaten via the 'bad touch'!
As the only child whom they smother with all the heavy expectations, all their unfulfilled dreams, all the currently wonky idea(l)s of child rearing, parents these days can hardly spare their precious time. Schools do follow rituals, but that unique individual touch would be missing, given the sheer number of students in a division, the notorious 'class strength'. In brief, childhood today is hardly 'songs of innocence' to quote Blake's famous title!
Pratima@ November 14 is Children's Day in India as it commemorates the birth anniversary of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India, who nurtured the nascent nation in a unique way.
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