SOCIETY TALK: Why are children out of control?

Accountability. A word that holds so much strength and power but has lost its grip on a particular group of people. Parents of Gen Zs and the newer generations have lost all sense of accountability. They do not take ownership of the outcomes of the decisions they make in terms of raising their children.

What are the consequences, you ask? A generation raised without empathy, respect and appreciation. A generation that brazenly sets their school on fire and feels nothing towards the loss of their peers who were burnt to death.

As a parent, I sit back and observe the world unfold in front of my eyes, watching as the news desks brought us devastating news of school children being burnt to death because their peers were angry at the institutions and decided to vent by setting the schools on fire.

I cannot fathom the idea of being so angry as to set a private property on fire. Someone else’s property at that. How much anger does one have bubbling inside that a small issue just makes them blow their fuse like that? What happened to make them so angry? More importantly, how were they raised?

Parents of these generations have excelled at one thing: defending their children. If you are told your child is bad, you respond with, “Everyone's child is bad, why are you focusing on just him?” If you are informed by the school that your child is not doing well in school, you tell the school to figure it out because it is their job to teach. Such parents will always blame anyone but themselves.

Recent videos from high school graduation coming out of America prove that parents are the problem on a global scale. These parents were having their own tantrums when their children were denied graduating with their peers because they failed. Parents were notified many times by the school but they disregarded the information until the 11th hour. Meanwhile, some kids (girls especially) would do splits and twerk across the dais to receive their high school diploma.

If you believe the way children act in America is out of context for us, think again. Last weekend, I attended my niece’s high school graduation ceremony. The school is a private international school, and fostering British curriculums is one of the indicators of a rich and thriving society. Seeing parents fork out millions to send their children to primary and secondary schools has always left me baffled. I cannot explain the ‘need’ for people to spend so much money on education for young people who have not even begun their path to life. And to be clear, my niece is an academic scholarship recipient because we are neither rich nor crazy.

I watched those children walking across the dais in their very short dresses, high heels and full make-up faces. Then I watched the parents walking in with their bouquets of flowers, ginormous wrapped gifts and money in the shape of flower bouquets. I was reassured that the blame lay with the parents.

When my niece joined the school, the principal warned her to study and avoid her peers. She was there to improve the academic standing of the school. The rich kids who pay to go there were treated merely as cash cows. Their parents dumped them at the school, hoping the teachers would raise them, and the school did not care about the outcome as long as they kept paying.

These children believe they are the centre of the universe. They speak rudely to their teachers and their parents. They vape and exhibit all kinds of bad behaviours, but no one really cared. At a certain point, I started feeling sorry for them, because they are about to be released into the real world, where no one gives a damn who your father is. A world where how you treat people matters and your productivity is the only currency people understand.

It's high time we take accountability as parents. In our efforts to break trauma cycles and raise our children as our friends, we failed to raise the younger generations with the values that put the humane in humanity.