We are raising a generation that are ready to pull the trigger on the gun that is life and the reason for that is the constant pressure that we put on them. Parenting methods of today are indescribably wrong because there’s just too many expectations. It is obvious that it is all meant for the betterment of his or her future but no parent these days ever sits down just to ask their child what they dream of achieving in life.
As the child grows up by bending to the never ending expectations, he or she loses the ability to think and learn from a child’s perspective. They let themselves lose to the needs and rules of the outside world, thus never giving themselves a chance to fight in this war of self-expectation and reality. A doctor in the 21st century will never wish for his son or daughter to be a doctor, instead he or she will train and educate their children to be a heart surgeon. However, any change in the plan will lead to the parent coining his or her child as “useless”.
According to research by Investors in People’s (IIP) annual Jobs Exodus survey, more that 60 per cent of people in the UK are not happy with their jobs and if we trace the path that these people took in life, it all comes down to their parental expectations. For a person to be happy in life, he or she must do what makes them happy in life. The reason that this does not happen most of the time is because job satisfaction does not provide the amount of income that reaches up to our expectations.
It goes on in a systematic way that I refer to as ‘the expectation cycle’. While this makes the world very educated, at the same time it also makes it exceptionally narrow minded. This is not just an article by a teenager that knows nothing about life or what the future might hold for her but a silent prayer, hoping that at least one parent reads and looks at the world in a different way. If the whole world becomes cardiologists, who will they cure?
— The reader is an Indian student based in Sharjah
