Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Friday, March 29th, 2024

Parenting and Social Ills

In our society the ills and misdeeds of a person is linked to his family and parents. Family values and the nourishment and teachings of parents are considered as the only determinant of a person’s choices and his actions. It is because our society is tribal in nature and it is one of the most dominating features of a tribal society that family and parents, particularly, fathers are considered very important. However, it is important to see the whole picture and find out the true determinants of a person’s overall personality and his values and judgments. It is not the family alone that decides a person’s attitude, behavior and ultimately his misdeeds.
The development of a personality is determined by different institutions, groups and personalities in the society. Religious institutions, culture, social values, educational institutions, sports peers and economic background all have their imprints on a personality. Though family is the first institution that a person comes across his life, and it has a dominating role, but it is not always the deciding factor in a person’s choices in his life. Moreover, it is not correct to say that pious and law-abiding parents will always have good children, who are responsible citizens and also follow the rules and regulations like their parents. There have been many cases when the children of illiterate parents have become a learned and wise member of society and vice versa.
It is important to see that the imprints of parent’s behavior on the minds of the children are not like reflection in a mirror – it does not come back in the same form; or it is not like the input and output in the computer, where the output is as per the demands of the users. If it was so, parenting would not be difficult at all, but it is not so and the parents living in our society are the witness to it. The love from the parents will not necessarily result in a good conduct of the children – observations show that children with great love and attention from their parents have committed crimes and evils that have made history; similarly, their neglect does not necessarily result in the children becoming evil-doers. There are many children in our society, who are the victims of their parents’ negligence, yet they show great values and behavior and even hate evils. Simply, human behavior and psychology is not like mathematics where two plus two is equal to four. To understand it, more efforts are required than just to cram the tables. Human psychology and behavior, in fact the overall human existence, are things of wonder and they are not always easy to comprehend.
The evils that we see in our society are, in fact, the responsibility of the society as a whole. As Henry Thomas Buckle had said, “The society prepares a crime, the criminal commits it”. This suggests that there are many socio-economic conditions that are involved in the preparation of the crimes which are the biggest evil in our society. The social injustice, the economic disadvantage, the political corruption, the religious intolerance, all these factors and many others play their roles in motivating the criminals and the evil-doers to commit them. Suppose a person steals money and becomes a thief. There are certain possibilities, all of which towards the role of the society in it – the person stole money because he was compelled by his economic conditions. He might have had financial problems and have been incapable of providing basic requirements of life to his family members. He might have a patient at home, waiting to be cured, which is only possible in today’s society through money as health services have become a great business. Thus, there are so many social factors that have nothing to do with the parents alone and which even compel the parents to nourish and guide their children in a certain way. In fact, if we see from a wider perspective we will soon realize that parents themselves are among the effected, how can they be the cause? The vicious circles of the unjust economic and political systems have bound the people in such a way that they have no way out and no clear idea what to do except blaming each other. That’s why we find parents blaming the children and children blaming the parents, and many others blaming both of them, when in fact both are innocent. However, as mentioned earlier, to understand this concept a wider approach is required while many people are just peeping through the lock hole to see the whole room, which does not assist them in any way to see the whole truth. Now, if the door is opened for them, they would be able to see the whole truth and realize how big this world is; definitely, much bigger than only a tribal perspective.