Gone are the days when children obeyed parents and elders. Those were the normal kids and within the then prevailing environment did their best to behave. Today, a new generation of parents and children have come in to picture. The techie parents and ‘put up with’ the gadget kids have a logic of their own which frightens the elders, who were docile kids, once upon a time.
The gadget kid takes everything for granted – handling toys, electronic gadgets and optical instruments belonging to others too. The kid's geographical knowledge is so phenomenal; it just needs only one visit to a friend's house, accompanied by parents of course. The kid simply sweeps everything aside to open a chest of drawers and pull out all the items of interest for subsequent endurance testing. The hosts stand transfixed at the ferocity with which their dear possessions are being pulled out. The parents stand wondering whether to chide the child or to go instantly invisible.
The mayhem continues without any break, while none of the elders gather enough courage to tell this gadget kid that enough damage has already been done. A broken toy or a Smartphone screen inflicted with scratch wounds was not enough to satisfy the kid’s bravado . The parents have firsthand experience of what this ‘enough’ will throw up – a high pitched siren and nerve wracking tantrum , the combination being worse than a loss of face in a friend's house. Unaware of this potential trouble, the hosts try to gently remind the gadget kid to show a little restraint.
The kid starts to fashion a skating roller out of an imported LED lamp. The was beyond the “enough” for an elderly person trying to remain calm all through this .He looked at the kid and said, “ Enough. Is this how you play at home?”
That was the trigger to set the siren and the tantrum going, making the hosts to see ghosts on the walls with a promise that the worse was yet to come. To play the part of perfect hosts, they swallow their pride and acknowledge, outwardly, that the gadget kid is super intelligent like almost all the kids nowadays. They mumble in unison, that such fertile mind needs to be kept fully engaged. The unspoken thought ‘Oh! What a monster of a kid' remained unsaid for the sake of a friendship.
The elderly person sat thinking after the storm had moved away from the house: Why the parents fail to show the kid its proper place? Why they give in so easily to the demands of the kid? Do they realize, in the future, their ward might develop intolerance of egomaniacal proportions? Don't they care or do not have the energy resources to set things in proper perspective? Is this the price extracted by MNCs as a quid pro quo for lucrative jobs? What makes them to endure – fickle health of the child or any other compelling psychological or physiological reason?
Why the hosts keep quite; for the fear of straining the friendship? Why they do not make the kid to understand, gently of course, that freedom comes with defined boundaries? Why do they not tell the kid tantrums hurt every one? Do they fear to accept the fact that they only encouraged the kid to evolve into a menace and a monster?
The elderly person continued thinking : Is it because they have a better understanding of today’s kids and are optimistic that as the kid grows up these things will be left behind? Are they not failing, as a friend, in not telling the parents to begin grooming the child a little better? Do they also anticipate a re-enactment, at a future date, and hence keep silence?
Finally the elderly person thought about an old hat, like him, may not be comfortable in the company of such kids but has to put up with the incorrigible, if at all, to maintain the pretense of flowing with the stream, at least for that moment! He could not appreciate the rate at which ‘child independence' is being granted or taken for granted.
Seeing all things ‘red’ might be the habit of old hats, and in modern homes there is no place for a coat stand! To be at peace the old bag started to pack his luggage. But the thought remained : “When will this domestic violence end?" Whether he has lost faith on the present generation? He kept these thoughts to himself, for a simple reason; did not want to become a persona non grata, at any cost!
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