“Happy Birthday to you” chortled a bunch of girls merrily, as I entered into a restaurant located in the very heart of the city of Guwahati. As I sat down on my table, just opposite to the girls, I was thunderstruck. All the girls were hardly aged 12-13 years and all of them were dressed in miniskirts, hot shorts, high heels. And when I glanced at their faces, I felt short for words. These young girls had their eyebrows shaped, heavily made up eyes and huge amount of dark lipstick!!!
Looking at these young kids and their body language, I thought “How did the innocence of these young girls got lost?” Their faces did not reveal the slightest hint of cuteness that a child of their age possesses; rather they appeared to be like some models walking on the ramp.
Is that what our society has come to today? Yes, we are heading towards moral degradation my friends. We no longer treat our girl kids as cute, innocent angels and try to nourish them with good values. Is it really necessary for a 12 year old girl to get her eyebrows shaped? At such a tender age those soft cheeks of the girls should have been glowing with happiness and innocence. Rather, the inherent glow of those rosy cheeks was masked by huge amount chemical products called ‘make up’.
Young kids are lured my media, peer pressure and other temptations. They are young. They don’t know how to differentiate between the good and the bad. That’s where the responsibility of the parents and elders comes. It really makes me get goose bumps to even imagine about parents who allow such kind dresses and make up for their tender aged daughters!! It is their duty to teach their kids, inculcate good values in them and keep a check on their development.
But unfortunately, today we have reached a stage where children see their parents only in the evening coming back from work and then sitting on their laptops and in the mornings rushing for their offices. Parents today are so busy with their office work that they hardly have time for their kids, let alone monitor their development. And what is happening to the kids? They are engaging themselves in these materialistic pleasures as a part of their recreation and enjoyment. And this is not just the case of one family; majority of the families nowadays have both the parents working and hence have no time to spend with their kids.
Another factor that plays a role in this regard is the “Desire to keep up with the rest of the world”. And this rest of the world mainly includes the Western world. This desire leads to the same kind of moral degradation on 2 levels –
- Children want to keep up in fashion and latest trends
- Parents don’t want their kids to be tagged as “Behenjis” and “Backward”
And when we let our children do these things, have we ever imagined the long-term consequences? What do we want our daughters to be when they grow up? Before listing out the “professions” on our wish list as parents for our kids, don’t we want them first and foremost to be good human beings?
It is the duty of all parents especially the mothers to develop good values in children. Young children are the builders of a future nation. What kind of nation do we want our children to build – a materialistic one or a good one? Let’s ponder over this fact guys – today it’s just a bunch of young girls, tomorrow it will spread to her younger sisters. Let’s ask ourselves – Is keeping up with the society so important that hume apni bachhiyo ki maasumiyat ko bhi chhupani par rahi hai (we have to veil the charm and grace of our tender daughters)?
