Today’s adults will not remain tomorrow. But today’s adults will, through their contribution in moulding the new world and their children’s values, attitudes, ideas and ideals, survive in the future. Today’s children are tomorrow’s adults. TV anchors are going shrill reporting corruption and violence, newspapers are spilling blood in your living room daily, and the moral fibre of the world is cracking under psycho-social degradation. But situations cannot be wished away overnight. Change of this nature is evolutionary. It happens slowly over time. One has to begin by training our children in fresh new ways of thinking with new inspiration and new ideas. As Tagore writes, “Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit, into that heaven of freedom, Father, let my country awake.”
This is not achieved merely by changing school curriculum or by intellectuals blabbering in coffee shops about transforming political ideology or academics crying hoarse about value-based education in schools. Children do not learn from books – they learn from their parents. If a child grows up watching the father use foul language, be aware, for you will soon see the son pattern himself on it. If the father smokes, the child will play-act by rolling up paper and pretending to smoke, saying, “See, I am daddy!” Medical science is now waking up to prenatal education now. And what has been the helpless embryo’s education? Films, videos and magazines that serve sex, violence and other crap to make their money, sadly, at the expectant mother’s cost! Hinduism insists on the purity of mind and body of an expecting mother. Hinduism does not favour smoking and drinking alcohol among young women, the reason being that young women go through motherhood and alcohol and tobacco harm the unborn. Medical science also points out that smoke and alcohol are two harmful things that the placenta cannot filter!
Parents, especially the mother, play a crucial role in the moral value systems of the family. Parents are directly responsible for the ruinous, suicidal behaviour of a youngster, while they are also the great inspiration for a Gandhi, a Shivaji, a Tagore and an Einstein. Time and again, great achievers have declared their indebtedness to their mothers for moulding their thinking. Even one child brought up to have the courage of a hero and the daring to uphold righteousness is known to have revolutionised the minds of his generation. They have changed the course of history. Such is the power of a mother!
“When mothers lose touch with spiritual values…and the adults’ lives become loose and unethical, then their children’s lives will also be degraded”, said Swami Chinmayanandaji. We can only train the plant to grow straight and strong when the sapling is young and pliable, one cannot train a tree to become straight! Parents need to live those values, not just preach them. No one can become rich by counting the king’s money. The child needs your time and presence, not your presents!
The author is President, Chinmaya Mission, Delhi.