Debased society reaping harvest of skewed values

The saga of child murder is unfolding with increasing ruthlessness. Now the most dreaded impression is that the entire country has turned into a killing field for children. Even infanticide or prolicide is making screaming headlines of late. Internal and intra-family feuds have been largely responsible for quite a large number of child murders. In other cases, no such reasons were needed for meting out inhuman torture to children leading to their death. An insane spree of child annihilation is going on all across the country.
Why? Why the grown-ups have suddenly gone after the children's blood? Society has long lost its poise. It is in the psychology of the apparently mature individuals. Parents are buying the collective ideas of society so debased. In this connection, the alleged infamous prolicide by a mother in the city's Nikunja area can be a very good lesson. Although both the law enforcement agencies -the Rapid Action Battalion and the Detective Branch - claim that the mother of the two murdered children has admitted her sole responsibility in the killing, not many are convinced.
The reason she has advanced for killing her own son and daughter is from an over anxiety of their wellbeing, a sense of securing their future, looks terribly flawed on the first look. But a closer look at society may not quite dismiss it as something ludicrous. What the majority of parents are doing to their children is cruel enough in the name of preparing the little ones for life. Parents want to fulfil their unachieved desire (dreams maybe!) through their children. So they go for a most repressive drill for their children right from a very tender age, say age two to three.
Parents feel no qualms about snatching the childhood from their dear children. Competition begins at that tender age for admission to a reputed school. They are not allowed to look beyond the window. How the sky changes its colours, trees grow, their green leaves and twigs become greener and then yellowish before coming off. How the dew drops on the grass become all pearl with the first rays of the sun. How the paddy field sway in breeze and the sheaves become rotund and golden before harvest. How rivers become lean and then with the advent of monsoon swell to flow mightily. How fishermen draw their nets with the fish struggling inside. All these are off-limit to them.
Apart from the sights and sounds of Nature, they are also deprived of their own passions, joys and emotion. In short they are not allowed to have a normal growth. Imposition of ideas and objectives on them does more harm than good. Why should every child have to be either a doctor or an engineer or an MBA? Not all children are gifted with similar or equal talents. It is a crime to force a child with natural proclivity for art, music or acting or reciting or sport to take up academic disciplines s/he does not like.
True, parents want their scions to be comfortably placed in life but this does not mean all children have to be shaped in the same dice to fit in a few select careers. Their talents of different types can take them far in life provided that they are encouraged and supported.
Society in its rush for success has set a few standards for all. Parents think without those lucrative careers, their children's life will be meaningless. It is because of this, the grownups need psychological treatment first. They must learn to recognise the special aptitudes of their children and encourage them to pursue their dreams in their own way.
There is no point teaching children to tread the beaten path all the time. Let them have their own say. If they do not have spontaneous response from heart to what they are asked to do, it may be a cause for misery. They must have ample time for play and entertainment so that they discover their place in this world. They must be allowed to read books that incite their creative urge and shed light on do's and don'ts. If they are familiar with the best minds the world has produced, they will know how to select their course of life all by themselves. Parents too will live a tension-free life on account of their sons and daughters.