Are Our Children Less Humane?
Question: Last week, several articles and TV shows about teenagers were released that caused a storm of reactions. One show described teenagers throwing orgies in villas with special rooms for sex.
Another article said that teenagers are into pornography starting at age nine. And then there was an article by a renowned anthropologist who claimed that our children are less human than us, but we do not notice. Is there really something special about the modern generation?
Answer: The same thing was written two thousand years ago: that youth is no longer the same, and that children used to obey their parents but today they do not.
Question: It is a well-known fact that old people always scold the youth. But we live in an era of technological revolution, and we are developing at an unprecedented rate. Really, does the last generation differ from all others?
Answer: I believe there is no such thing as a “bad generation” or a “good generation.” Everything depends on upbringing. If today we suddenly discover that something is wrong with our children, then we must ask ourselves: “Where were we before? How did we allow them to reach this state?”
Why did we not pay attention while the children were growing up? Because we ourselves were busy with all sorts of trivial pursuits and desires, and we were trying to make our own lives as pleasant as possible. We handed the children over to the school, and we let the school raise them.
But the school never thought about upbringing either. The school curriculum is designed to stuff a child with knowledge. A school is not a place where character is shaped; it simply provides certain information about the world in order to prepare students for university.
There was no true education, only the transfer of information. So we should not be surprised that the children turned out this way. And even now, when we see the results, we do not want to change anything. We are hardly parents at all. Even animals raise their young better than we do.
Comment: One article says that parents communicate with their children by text message. The parent is never at home, and only sends the child messages like: “Did you eat? Did you do your homework?” But in reality, the parent does not see the child, does not talk to them, and does not take part in raising them.
My Response: That is true. The problem is that in the past people lived in private houses with yards, and children played near the home. They were not exposed to the entire world. They played with cats and dogs, kicked a ball around, and rode their bicycles. Boys played soccer, girls played with dolls. Everything happened out in the open, and parents could see what their children were doing. It was a kind of pastoral scene.
Today all of that is gone. Children do not go outside; each one is glued to a computer screen.
Question: A child spends more than nine hours a day looking at a computer or phone screen. That is a fact. What solution can there be?
Answer: This is the result of our negligence and our disregard for proper upbringing. Nothing appears by itself; every phenomenon has a cause. And the cause here is very clear: human behavior. It is the human being who spoils nature and the environment, and it is the human being who creates a damaged human society.
No one else is to blame. We are the only creatures in nature who have been given the freedom to shape the world however we choose. And if we decide that we do not care about our children, or about the kind of people they will grow up to be, then the result is inevitable.
Human nature is selfish and harmful from birth, and if a person is not guided and educated, it is obvious where they will end up. The same would have happened to our generation if we had grown up under the conditions that children face today.
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From KabTV’s on radio station 103FM, 1/8/16
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