Education and it's complicated relationship with Parents

Words - Asmita Yadav

Education is said to be the base of every country’s development. It helps in eradicating the discrimination that prevails on the basis of caste, sex and age. Education develops rational thinking, makes us understand what crime is and what are its consequences. Education is the pillar of one’s career. Better education can help in giving out good ideologies to the nation.

But who should be educated?

Obviously, children should be educated because they are the future of our country. But if their present blocks the future then what will be its use?

According to me, education should be given to the parents because before educating your child, you should educate yourself. The main reason behind this is that parents are an obstacle between education and children. Parents ultimately end up stopping their children from becoming a rational thinker.

How are the parents an obstacle between education and children?

Here I will try to explain to you my above statement with few real examples which you can relate to.

In our school, we teach that girls and boys have the same right and there should be no discrimination between them, but when we really try to implement the same in our real life, our parents are the ones to discriminate between male and female. There’s no doubt that the love for both the children is equal but when it comes to clothes, marriage, parties and career, then they go against our education system. Girls are more likely to work in the kitchen whereas boys are said to handle all the outside work.

In school, we thought that Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Jain, Christians are all human beings and religion is just an identity. But when we try to marry a girl/boy from a different religion then our parents are the one to stand against us and force us to marry a person from the same religion.

In school, we are taught that career is most important. But when we are busy in making our career plans and searching for a better job opportunity, our parents start giving more importance to our marriage and become busy in searching for a groom/bride for us.

Science in school says menstruation is just a health problem and the girls should not be treated as untouchables. But we all are aware of how girls are still shy about their periods and in many religions, girls are forced to remain separate from their family and are not allowed to enter the kitchen and the temple. If somehow we take a stand against it then we are threatened by our own family. We are taught what superstition is but our own family follows that like a fact and forces us to believe the same. Our teacher says that we shouldn’t listen to anyone and to live your life by yourself. But our mom and dad say don’t do this, don’t do that, if you do so then what will the society say?

There are so many examples which prove that our family and our own parents are an obstacle to our education and development. Kids are more likely to follow their parents without questioning them because they believe that they will never teach us wrong and this stops us from following our book and real values. Whatever they are taught by their parents they follow same, like whatever they teach us we follow and so the hierarchy will go on and the real meaning of education which teaches us value, equality and rational thinking will be ignored. Today, education according to them is just for a better job and a good salary.

So it’s necessary that there should be a special section in schools and colleges for parents too, which will help in erasing the age gap and provide a better understanding between the child and the parents.