Have we cared for our kids enough?

‘A child is a beam of sunlight from the Infinite and Eternal, with possibilities of virtue and vice, but as yet unstained,’ wrote Lyman Abbott and what better words could sum up the innocence and purity of those young years when everything seems so full of joy and optimism. It’s Children’s Day today and it’s time again to take a peek into the lives of our little ones; have they really shed the trauma and horror of the pandemic, the creeping fear of contracting the deadly virus if they let down their guard for a moment?

Two years of the virus has taken a heavy toll of our lives and most of all the sparkling and unblemished moments of every kid, their playtime out in the ground and their trips into the big, wide world hanging on to their parents’ fingers. All that was hurriedly forgotten during the Corona years when most people preferred to stay indoors, either because of the lockdowns or out of anxiety, not daring to expose their kids to the outside world.

The vaccination drive has halted the pandemic - permanently or temporarily - and so the spring is back in the kid’s step and the masks have started coming off. The pandemic apart, are our kids living in the safe, bright world we would always want them to be in? The contours of life have tremendously changed in the past few decades with the mobile and Internet invading our minds like never before, making most kids addicted to them.

They are advantages of course with awareness levels increasing at walloping speeds; the average kid today knows much more about the world he lives in than we ever did but mischievous and dirty content also seeps in tending to corrupt young minds. Moral dos’ and don’ts hardly matter when the buzzword is freedom and so parents have a difficult time drawing limits which are inevitably broken. It’s a brave, new world out there and a ‘new kids order’ is also emerging amid the new world order in which economic might determines the shape of history.

The global kid is the rage now as national boundaries crumble with fresh graduates setting their sights on lucrative careers in Alabama and London rather than Adugodi or the ITPL in Bengaluru. But one should also give the new generation their due for even as they fly out to newer destinations across the globe, they still have their feet firmly grounded on their home terrain always longing to return.

There is another side of the story-about the millions who hardly get to know or see the big, bright world on the other side, dragged into poverty and illiteracy for no fault of theirs and not knowing where the next meal will come from. In towns and mega cities, in rural parts, they look bleakly into the future hoping the darkness will disappear some day and they will be able to live the life they dream of, like their counterparts on the other side of the economic divide.

The pandemic has only made their lives worse with many losing their parents and forced into penury and child labour. Many a Children’s Day has come and gone but they continue to slave away while those in power are hardly concerned about their wasted childhood years. Don’t they deserve a better life, good food, nourishment and proper education to make them worthy citizens of this great land? It’s a question which will return to haunt us every Children’s Day till we do our mite to better the lot of the less fortunate.