Desicritics Category: Culture: Children

Should Marriage be Abolished?

Sumanth — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 07:42:15 EDT

In old days, people mostly lived in communities in villages. The parents used to take care of children and the grown up children used to take care of frail and sick old parents. That was the circle of life.

Today, with the Americanization of the world, some new noble actors gatecrashed into this circle of life. They are the Corporates, Society and the Government.

Today, parents solely take care of children, and then they handover the grown up children to Corporates and Governments. The young children work for the corporates and pay taxes to the Government, which claims to take care of everyone. In reality, children do not have time for old and sick parents. I see a lot of respectable elderly people in the neighborhood, who explain their old age loneliness with tears in their eyes.

Even though there is a lot of pressure for Americanization of India by Helen Clark of UNDP, our Government does not talk about anything American like Social Security or Healthcare System for old people in India.

The returns on investment (ROI) on children by parents are virtually zero today. So, children should be the responsibility of the Society or the Commune. Osho wanted the family to be replaced by the Commune.

Marriage should be abolished. With that there will be an end to divorce industry. There will be no family courts, lawyers, psychoanalysts, therapists, priests, perverts, dowry takers and prostitutes. When commune takes care of all children, there will be absolutely no orphans in the society.

When marriage does not exist and children become responsibility of the commune, men and women do not have to struggle for work life balance and they will have more choices in life. The personal emergencies and shocks will get absorbed by the whole commune.

In the book Third Wave, Alvin Toffler wrote, "Nuclear Family has no meaning, when there is no nucleus at home." The Commune will fill richness in children's lives, where as in a marriage today, the child has to remain suppressed between 2 adults and their narrow identities.

The Commune will create an alternate circles of life with much more stable interactions and interrelationships.

Osho On Marriage and Children:

To My "Little Women"

Cee Kay — Tue, 9 Mar 2010 21:15:09 EST

Dear M and S,

Yesterday was International Women's day. I wanted to write this for you then, but better (a day) late than never, right?

You, my beautiful little ladies, are the reason your dad and I find each day worth living to our fullest. Before you came into our lives, we had no idea that we lacked something (or two special someones) in our lives. But now we cannot imagine not having you in our lives. I shudder at the thought of sending you to college. I will probably be the helicopter mom personified, literally hovering over your dormitories and classrooms. I have no qualms about embarrassing you, my darlings. See, that is what we are saving for - your respective therapies that will be needed just for the fact that you have been subjected to your dad and me :)

That apart, here is something I want you never to forget. You are going to grow up into beautiful, confident women. Your dad and I will make sure of that. The world and its uncle will try to tell you how a woman should behave, think, dress or live. Before they get to you, I want to imprint a few things on your minds.

1. You DON'T have to please everyone all the time. You DON'T have to please ANYONE at all, if you don't feel like it. Sure, nice people sometimes do some things for others that make them (others) feel good. I am all for such niceties. But remember - NEVER be forced into doing something, anything for someone if your heart, gut or mind says no. Listen to your "self". I am not condoning selfishness. I am just saying that do not give in to someone's "Good girls make sure their parents/husbands/boyfriends/friends/God/whoever are happy". Remember, a happy and contented self is much better than a happy anyone-else. But diplomacy sure does make life easier - remember that!

2. Stand up for yourself. Because no one else will, if you don't. Don't be bullied into doing something you don't want to. If you think what you are offering someone is reasonable and fair, it probably is. If they don't agree, negotiate. But DO. NOT. BE. BULLIED. INTO. SUBMISSION!! It is possible to be pleasant and yet stand your ground. At the same time, never be hesitant in unsheathing your claws when you have to. Sometimes you HAVE to show people what you are really made of in order for them to take you seriously.

3. Remember good men don't hit women. They don't terrorize women, humiliate them or coerce them into doing something they don't want to do. There are plenty of good men around. You DON'T have to settle for anyone less than "good". Not even for "good enough". It is better to spend life alone than to put up with an abuser just because "Good" didn't come along. Have the confidence to go on your way alone and I am sure you will find someone who is just right for you. Even if you don't, remember YOU are perfect for you! Remember how your dad loves and respects me. Always remember - you deserve such a partner too. Never settle for anything less.

4. Be financially independent. No matter how loving a husband/partner you have and even if you are well taken care of, make sure you have at least one UPDATED skill that can get you gainful employment whenever you need. You never know what curveball life will throw at you next year, next month or next moment. Be prepared. If you WANT to work, never let anyone tell you that good wives or mothers don't. Never let another person dictate whether or not you should work, or where for that matter. There is no blessing greater in this world than to be able to do what you want to do in life. And don't let any idealist tell you that working to "earn money" is inferior to any other goal. Don't let money be your be all, end all. But do make some money. You will realize a healthy bank balance brings along mental peace and allows you to focus on the more important things in life - like family. Don't undervalue money, but don't overvalue it either.

5. Take good care of yourselves. Take time out for yourself, no matter how crazy life is and no matter how many responsibilities you have. Even if you are with someone, make sure you take out time for YOU. Alone. Very important for your "self" AND for any relationship. Eat healthy, exercise, be active. Have some hobbies that take you outdoors and allow you to be physically active. Mental agility is good too. Try and strike the balance between the two.

6. Be cautious. In unknown locations, uncertain situations and around unknown people. ALWAYS be on your guard! Safety should be a habit, not a "hobby". I cannot stress this enough.

7. Learn everything there is to learn to survive AND to live comfortably. Learn what it takes to progress in your professional fields, learn to cook, to sew, to change a flat tire, change a light bulb, repair a fuse, fix a toilet. In short - anything that you might need to do one day. Or earn enough to be able to pay others to do all this for you. But I'd still say knowing how to do all these things is a good idea - then you will know if someone is trying to rip you off by charging, say, 50 bucks to fix a fuse.

8. Don't hold regrets and grudges. They poison minds, hearts and relationships. It is a difficult thing to learn. I am still learning it. But I hope you will do a better job of it than me. Talk things out. Don't let a little disagreement fester into a big one. Learn to apologize when it is your fault, but don't be apologetic all the time. Learn when to say "I understand you feel this way, but I think I am right".

9. Take a long time to make friends and even longer to end friendships. Remember it is hard to undo the hurt of a mean word or gesture. But also know when to let a relationship go. If it is preying on your mind and being, but going nowhere, you are probably best OUT of it than in.

10. Be competitive. Healthy competition builds character. Don't let the pacifists tell you that participation is good enough. Participation is good but winning, or trying to win, is better. I don't mean to tell you that your efforts are worthless if you don't win. What I mean to tell you is put in your 100% efforts and then some more. If you win, good, if not at least you know you tried your best.

11. Love each other unconditionally. A sister (sibling) is our first and ever lasting best friend. Sure you will have differences. Who doesn't? But learn to resolve those differences amicably. In the end, when your dad and I are gone, you will only have each other to lean on.

There! 11 things - one for each year that I have been a mother. There are many more things I want to tell you, teach you. More later!

The True Stories of Slumdog Millionaire

Shelley Seale — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 09:15:32 EST

If you have not yet seen the movie Slumdog Millionaire, you've surely heard of it. One of the biggest movies of the year, it just swept the Golden Globes and looks poised to do the same at the Oscars. For good reason - it's affecting without being affected, gives us great multi-dimensional characters, has phenomenal cinematography with brilliant India as its backdrop, along with a beautiful musical score. In addition, it has three of the most natural, appealing child actors to be seen on the big screen in a long time. If you haven't seen the movie, I urge you to see it. I promise it'll take you an hour after the ending to wipe the smile off your face.

This tale of life and love in the slums of Mumbai alternates between heartbreak and triumph. The story follows two brothers who live in abject poverty, whose lives are made even more difficult after they are orphaned. Following them throughout their childhood and into early adulthood - along with their friend Latika - we see them fight against exploiters, brothel owners, child abusers, and even each other, in their struggle to survive.

I spent a day as an "Un-Tourist" in these very slums of Mumbai - a place called Dharavi. I went with Deepa Krishnan, owner of tour operator Mumbai Magic. Immersing yourself in the real lives of ordinary people in a place traveled to is a unique experience, and one that can truly bring the spirit and culture of a place alive to the traveler.

Slumdog Millionaire captures this brilliantly and is a fantastic movie, that caused me at times to want to applaud and at times to cringe and shut my eyes. Despite its upbeat ending and "rags to riches" Hollywood/Bollywood mechanism, Slumdog Millionaire shows us a side of India, and a way of life, that millions of children struggle to survive every day. Orphaning, abandonment, homelessness, begging, working, being exploited and abused...this is real, daily life for hundreds of thousands of children in Mumbai alone.

The actors who play the characters at their youngest ages are themselves Hindi-speaking street kids, discovered by casting director Loveleen Tandan. This fact reminded me of the 1988 movie Salaam Bombay, a movie by Mira Nair that was also about street kids in Mumbai, and which featured a cast of actual street children. Nair went on to start a foundation, the Salaam Baalak Trust, with proceeds from the film, and today SBT assists thousands of street children in Mumbai and Delhi. I interviewed Nair's mother, Praveen, in my book The Weight of Silence; Praveen started SBT with her daughter Mira.

Salaam Bombay has a grittier, more realistic feel without the rags-to-riches ending. While I love the Slumdog Millionaire movie, while watching it there did resonate in me a sense of reinforcement of just such fantasies that lead kids into street life in Mumbai all the time. While traveling India and researching for my book, I interviewed many social workers and child advocates who told me that thousands of children run away from home and catch a train to "Bombay" with fantasies of the movies or making it big in the glamorous city filling their head.

Sadly, most of them fall prey to just such exploiters as those found in both these movies: traffickers, begging rings, brothel owners or factory recruiters. Many of them remain living in the railway stations in which they arrive, begging or scratching out a living by sorting through trash for recycling or other dangerous endeavors. You can read my story here about my day spent with just such railway boys in Mumbai.

The lesson I would like to leave about this movie is: please see it. Enjoy it. Revel with these kids when luck comes there way. But please, please - don't forget the millions of others whose lives continue in poverty, abuse and despair.

The Children of India: A Volunteer Travel Experience

Shelley Seale — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 11:36:36 EST

The idea of volunteering in another country has long been considered the province of students and recent graduates; images of intrepid twenty-year-old Peace Corps workers in a remote Sierra Leone village might spring to mind. Today, however, the idea has reached far beyond that to become accessible, and highly popular, among travelers of all types and ages.

Even the Peace Corps itself has changed dramatically – from an average age of 24 in its beginning in the 1960s, to 28 as of 2002. Many early retirees and those seeking mid-life career changes are joining up – the oldest Peace Corps Volunteer ever was 86 when he completed his service. Volunteer travel has grown so popular that a term has even been coined for it: Voluntourism.

Companies and websites specializing in voluntourism have sprung up by the hundreds, and volunteer vacations can be found in all parts of the world, doing all kinds of activities – from digging wells for clean water in South America, to working with children living in orphanages. It was this last type of volunteer vacation that hooked me. In 2004, I became involved with a nonprofit based in Austin called The Miracle Foundation, which manages orphanages in India and recruits sponsors and donors to support the children living there. By 2005, I was traveling to India myself, to volunteer in the orphanage.

The children are everywhere in India. They fill the railway stations, the cities, the shanty villages. Some scrounge through trash for newspapers, rags or anything they can sell at traffic intersections. Others, often as young as two or three years old, beg. Many are homeless, overflowing the orphanages and other institutional homes to live on the streets. I had no way of knowing just how much they would change my life.

India was everything I had imagined it would be – only more so. More colors and smells, more noises and people, more everything. It was an assault on all the senses at once. The cacophony that greeted me was jarring after the peaceful countryside I had gazed down on from the airplane. There seemed no still or quiet space. Instead there were throngs of people everywhere, living and working and sleeping; hundreds of street vendors lined every available inch of sidewalk, while mangy dogs and cows nosed at piles of trash around them.

Rickshaw drivers pedaled through traffic alongside schoolgirls with their braided hair and backpacks. The smell of curry and incense hung thick in the air along with soft chanting from nearby temples. The dusty roads peppered with potholes were filled with a constant stream of buses, bicycles, rickshaws, cars and cows and rising over it all was the constant, blaring beep-beep of the horns. It was the most alive place I had ever been. India is too big to describe adequately, too big perhaps to absorb in a single lifetime. The country simply wrapped itself around me and refused to let go.

There was also what everyone, including myself, expected of India – despair, filth, destitution. The trash that lined the roads and the beggars that tapped at car windows. The deteriorating buildings, the ragged street hawkers, the shanty village along the river banks. The frantic poverty that would not let me rest.

At home, these things are hidden neatly away as much as it is possible to do so. But in India, everything is in full view; nothing is hidden. Its rawness of life strips away the unnecessary - distractions, superficial attachments, trivial worries. Without this safety net life becomes fundamental, only the essentials of being, and causes you to be fully present in your own existence. You become lost, in order to find.

And even still, there was beauty in the midst of it. The vitality of life teeming all around, the jangling of bangles and ankle bracelets, the colorful saris, the carved temples with swaying trees surrounding it all. The tremendous scale of the monuments, palaces and art from one of the first great civilizations left me stunned, as did the strange way there was a deep-seated peace even in the midst of tumultuous movement and clamor. The wonderful and the abject co-exist side by side. Though the country struggles with the indigence of large numbers of its population, it is far from a poor place.

And in the children this beauty seemed to come alive, almost making me believe it was a living entity I could capture in my hands. I arrived at the orphanage expecting it to be a sad place, an emotionally wrenching experience. But those expectations were turned on their head. Yes, there were stories behind each of the children – many of them painful and tragic. Stories of death, abandonment, abuse, poverty. They all had a past.

Yet the couple who ran the home, the house mothers and teachers there, the other volunteers, all made these kids their own in a community of sharing and acceptance. They were poor in wealth but not in spirit; limited in resources but not in joy and laughter. An interior peace shown from inside them that was unknown – unsought even – by many people rich in resources. Their hope and resilience amazed me time and time again; the ability of their spirits to overcome crippling challenges inspired me.

Even in the most deprived circumstances they are still kids – they laugh and play, perhaps far less frequently than others; they develop strong bonds and relationships to create family where none exists; and most of all they have an enormous amount of love to give - for nothing more than showing up. The very existence of these children forever altered both the person I was and my view of the world. India shows us where our suffering lies, and in this way becomes more than anything else a teacher, if only we are open to learn from her.

Liberate Our Students From Sexual Repression

Golden Boy — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 08:49:50 EST

My decision of taking up the Profession of a Spoken English Trainer came with its own pros and cons. On one hand it meant I would have had to settle for less money, on the other hand I found out that it could be a deeply satisfying experience as it meant I could work with young people, helping them learn a language that could open for them not only a door to a whole new world of expression but also free them of the cultural baggage of their mother-tongue.

In my experience as a Spoken English Trainer, I have discovered that two things compel Indians to learn the language: One, the whole new vista of better job prospects that the knowledge of this International Language offers; and secondly, the characteristic of English language as a tool of self-expression which is used across the globe in a growing community of forward-looking people who belong to the realm of progressive thought.

Being able to speak and communicate in English is the key to adopt a whole new culture based on freedom from archaic traditions imposed by religion and society. It is THE medium now for universal brotherhood, the language of the Global Citizen who does not believe in boundaries of narrow nationalistic ideologies.

"Experience in the Classroom"

Even as I struggled to find my own ways and means to teach a foreign language to young people who largely belonged in the age group of 17-24, in an attempt to equip them with a skill for financial betterment, I was soon to discover that I was also dealing with their psychology in some way.

Knowing a particular Indian language as your first language can bring with it its own luggage of past history and cultural ideologies and limitations

Very soon in my career as a Spoken English Trainer I found that my students were basically shy, non-expressive, self-repressive, and carried a baggage of puritanical ideology, all of which was evidently not their own baggage but the heritage of their mother tongue which was the symbol of a particular lifestyle and psychology that their elders belonged to.

People from Hindi and Marathi medium schools are basically unexposed to the ideas of Individuality and Liberty. The Cinema of these languages are hugely influenced by a sexually repressive and narrow Nationalistic mentality which has been the heritage of a country like India, a country that has historically been subject to foreign onslaughts, and was subject to major religious influences (Indic, Islamic and Victorian) which believed in suppression of one's sexual energy.

Even as I struggled to help them learn a foreign language, I noticed that just knowing the nuances of the language was not enough.

The struggle lay not as much in teaching them Grammar but in giving them a voice to express themselves, a voice that had been silenced over generations by forces- religious and imperialistic that wanted the multitudes of this country to remain quiet and adhere to the Ideology of Suppression

Talking openly in the classroom about Sex or anything remotely to do with sexuality, even about being attracted to the opposite gender, could be termed as a major diversion from my duty as a Language Trainer

But what can be more liberating than tapping into one's sexual energy for the purpose of freeing oneself from the mentality of suppression? And what better way to expressing oneself than tapping into a space within which is hugely sexual in nature, in order to free individual expression?

Everyone knows that even the most loyal of Elephants goes wild when in 'heat' i.e. the period of 'heightened sexual desire', when the animal struggles to break away from its shackles.

What lies beneath all our highly held ideologies of Liberty and Freedom as the basic Human Right enshrined in every progressive Constitution today, is this sexual energy. And if it is tamed or suppressed in any way, be it religious or societal is an abuse of the most pervert order.

What I have found in my classrooms is that families go to an extra mile to suppress the sexual energy of a growing child, even to the extent of depriving them of Attention as a means of manipulation of their sexual life-force. Lack of validation for the Individual in them, due to the archaic family roles and duties in India, makes Individual Expression even more repressed.

How can an Individual speak the language of the Free when he/she has to bend down under the weight of his own cultural baggage? How can he even start expressing himself in English, when self-expression itself has been muffled in every home in this country for generations?

It is time to wake up and think!

Poem: The Cancer Boy

Kashkin — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 20:45:48 EST

Never met him,
Never knew
The pain he carried
The little boy
In his body
The frail and tired
And yet, I cry
Thousands miles away
As earth covers in its blanket
The tiny soul
As snowflakes cover
The distant echoes
Of pain and despair
"I wish I could do more"

Underneath that earth,
The angel, the world
And emptiness in hearts
Still alive, his parents
Yet I cry, thousand miles away
As earth covers in its blanket
The tiny soul
As snowflakes cover
The distant echoes
Of pain and despair
For children in need
Of my home, and place
"I wish could do more"

Kashkin

Grooming Starts in a Barber's Shop

Suresh Naig — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 08:31:47 EST

Yes. Grooming starts in a barber's shop literally and metaphorically too. This morning I sat on a barber's chair; the rhythmic movement of his soft fingers on my head coupled with the tingling sensation of mentholated oil forced my eyes to close and I was enjoying the delirium sans narcotics. The TV up on a corner was playing a Music channel watched by none other than the barbers and the small table in front of the sofa was strewn with glossy magazines with flashy girls on the cover page.

The glass door of the hair salon was opened and a young boy stepped in, accompanied by his father. The boy was around 10 years of age, looking pretty with overgrown locks, curly and lustrous. The father instructed the barber to crop it short, and the young boy grimaced.

The father shouted, 'you don't know. Just keep quiet and he will do a nice job' and left the beauty salon leaving the boy fuming.

I felt that certain things have not changed over years. The father and son duo had triggered my grey cells and I vividly recollected my boyhood days in the barber's shop. Whenever I return from the barber's shop after a haircut, however short was the cut, it was difficult for me to satisfy my father. He always admonished me by saying that the cut was not short enough. Out of disgust, once I got my head clean shaved which forced my father to throw tantrums, for we were not allowed to shave our head completely, other than for religious vows. Later I learnt the reason for his tantrums, which was nothing but a reverse cause and effect fear. Sons would tonsure their heads only when the father dies and now that I have tonsured my head the fear of reverse effect had gripped him, resulting in his tantrums. However my innocuous act never impacted his longevity.

As a boy, certain things I had resolved and one among them was not to interfere in the hair cut of my children. However, I never expected such positive accruals out of a silly resolution. I used to drop my son in a barber's shop and instruct the barber to give a hair cut as desired my son, ignoring the surprised look of the barber. I had even encouraged my son to pay the charges of the barber from the cash I had given him. This had inculcated a sense of responsibility in him, that he had developed a sense of right and wrong spending, from an early age 10years.

His grooming had started literally from the barber's shop and he had learnt by trial and error. He had learnt to take decisions; short, medium or close crop and the resultant impact of comments from his peers. When mocked at for a lousy hair cut from his peers he never had an easy way out, blaming the elders of the household, but to own up his decisions. Having learnt from a very young age on what is decision making and how to own up decisions; he had matured into a man with fine virtues. He is respected in the large family of several cousins for his insight and judgment.

When I credit the barber's shop for my son's grooming, many consider it as humor and never realize the sense behind it.

Book Review: Sepia Leaves by Amandeep Sandhu

Anuradha Goyal — Fri, 8 Jan 2010 08:28:18 EST

It is a challenging task to review a book, when you know it is autobiographical and deals with the story of the storyteller. This is a bold attempt by Amandeep to bare his soul to the world, a rare feat. It is not easy to talk about your not so normal childhood, family and all that comes with it. It is not easy to talk about one's own parents and extended family. It is not easy to share your emotions as an observer. It is an immensely intense personal memoir, almost cathartic, a therapeutic need of the author to say the story. So kudos to the author for doing that...

The story takes you through the journey of author from the times he was a small child and since the time he can remember things to the time when he looses his father who in a way is his hero and the real protagonist of the story. He talks about his schizophrenic mother and how he and his father dealt with her and the situations that arose out of her erratic and unpredictable behavior. How their life revolved around her moods and antics, how some day the sun would suddenly shine on them and while the other days they would just be waiting for the rain to stop. Eventually it is a story of a child's persistent hope that one day he and his parents would happily live as a family and share their joys and sorrows like other families. He does manage to do that, may be not to the extent he wanted to, but they do end up living as a family.

His father's character is something you would empathize with while you admire him for his commitment for a woman he married, for a child that be brought to this earth and what he considers a family. His willingness to give up his career, his acceptance of bad behavior of his wife in public and humiliation at the hands of her family is something not many men can do. He is not even proud or boastful of what he does. He accepts whatever life has given him and considers it as his Sanjog (Fate / destiny), and works towards doing whatever best he can do. Eventually he finds some solace in pursuing some of his interests like listening to ghazals.

I would have wanted more details of the story. It seems the author discovered the reason for his mother's condition and his father's amazing commitment, but he knowingly or unknowingly did not share it. There are a lot of situations where the scene suddenly changes and how it changed is not explained. Like when they did go out as a family, how did they talk it out to his mother and what motivated her to go. What is the emotion that kept the child bound to his parents even when he lived away from them in a hostel? Why did he yearn to come back to his home in Rourkela. I would have wanted him to talk more specifics of the city and how the new city also made him distant from his extended family and how the neighbors and father's colleagues made a difference to his life or acted as the extended family. Though he does mention one of his aaya and a newspaperwallah who meant and lot to him, provided care when no one else did and who become a part of life and his mental family.

The events in the history have been used to depict the timeline, but sometimes the author gets frayed away by these events, which otherwise have no relevance to the story. Editing of the books leaves a lot to be desired. There are sentences which are dropped midway, there are popular poems that have been quoted wrongly, the language gets mixed up here and there and so does the chronology. The chapters in Italics are initially used for the present, but suddenly somewhere in between they mingle with the past. The book definitely deserved a better editing.

The mood of the book is Melancholy. Read it to get an insight into how a child relates to his parents and what they mean to him, no matter what the world thinks of them. It is good read for parents who let their children live away from them, while they may be thinking of acting in the best interest of the child, but they probably do not realize that more than anything else the child needs them. A child will never resent a parent for not giving them the best of things in this world, but a child would always resent a parent for keeping him away from them for whatever reason.

An insightful read...

Where Does "Control" Figure in Your Parenting Style?

Cee Kay — Fri, 1 Jan 2010 00:03:24 EST

When I first became a parent, I thought I could control all aspects of bringing up my child. Her environment, her influences, her choices, likes and dislikes. Well, I knew I couldn't control her choices, likes and dislikes completely, but I sure hoped I could help shape them. Only thing is - I didn't think of this as "controlling behavior". I sincerely thought of it as "perfect parenting".

11 years down the line, I know one thing. There is no such thing as a "perfect parent". I have worked hard at keeping an open communication channel with my older daughter (the younger one is too young to "communicate") and through various conversations with her I have realized that, maybe, I went overboard in certain things. Things that, when I reconsider my approach, I could have held back on and gotten approximately the same results. In other words, I should have been more picky about choosing my (parenting) battles.

Good thing is - I realized it at all. Given that I have an ego the size of a mammoth, it hasn't been an easy task to realize and accept that I am not *gasp* The Perfect Parent!! I see parents around me who have gone through YEARS of parenting without realizing that the amount of control they want to exert on their kids' lives is not healthy. It is unhealthy for their relationship with their kids and it is probably unhealthy for their kids' self-esteem. Extreme control will, most probably, either make the kids complete pushovers or rebels. It will disrupt their ability to develop a balanced personality. There are very few who have, and will, overcome that kind of influence and go on to develop all-rounded, wholesome personalities.

I understand the need to control your child's environment, influences etc. when he/she is little. But I am a great believer of gradually letting go as the children grow older. My intolerance towards extreme parental control also arises from witnessing, firsthand, how some people try to control even their grown up, adult children. It is difficult to let go when you are not mentally prepared for it. I have seen what kind of bitterness that introduces in the relationship between the parents and children.

So, how much control is acceptable in your opinion?

Ruchika - Indian Law Allows Child Molester to be Let Off

Kishore — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 20:47:20 EST

These are historical times we live in. These are times when a high ranking police officer is allowed to molest a kid, be tried for two decades and then lawfully be allowed to walk free, simply because he’s grown gray hair on his head.

Ruchika was 14 when she was molested. And when protested, she was caught in a battle between the political prowess of the Rathores and her little family – she was molested, three years later expelled from school, her brother falsely accused of stealing cars. Overwhelmed by what her family was going through, she committed suicide.

During the two decades it took for a sentence, Rathore who had all fun in his younger years satiating on a little kid young enough to be his daughter, what he probably missed with his wife, grew from height to height and retired as the well respected police officer. And after pronouncement of the sentence, Rathore still had the balls to say “It's a very old issue. Forget about it now.”

Not surpising, for a rich 67 year old former policeman who has seen all the wealthy (and sexual) pleasures of life this nirvana-ish trash talking might just be his way of spending a peaceful no hassles post-retirement life; who cares if he stomped over a few families on the way, or molested and murdered a few kids. After all, the law gives so much respect to old age, that even the molestation of a kid forcing her into suicide becomes a little scar on the cheek that would heal in time.

The pronouncement note quotes section 354 IPC and says, "the prolonged trial and the age of the convict can be considered while passing the order on quantum of sentence."

Ok, so the law is an ass. But on this day, humanity has sunk to a new low where the elderly age of the convict is reason-enough to brush aside the tortures of a 14 year old. Rathore's wife Abha, who was the defence counsel protecting the husband who had broken all shards of morality, said, “He has already undergone valve surgery and he requires medical help.” So we have a case where an old convict seeks medical help to remain alive after abetting the suicide of a kid thereby depriving her of an entire life.

Not for the first time, this sentence has revealed the massive chinks in the Indian Legal System. The law prosecuted Rathore for molesting a young girl, but does not prosecute him for raping the trust the common man had on the Indian civil officers.