Denial and Self denial

I am not a masochist. Nor a renunciate. But looking back at the last decade and half of my life, I can't help asking myself whether we have forgotten the virtue of denial and self-denial. The newspaper recently carried a report on children who insisted on admission to elite colleges whose fees were beyond their parents' means only because their friends had gone there. This, although they had already obtained admission in good colleges with subsidized fees. Callous insensitivity, I thought.

I often - too often - hear of children who refuse to visit relatives whose houses are not air-conditioned.

We see young school girls precociously splashing money in beauty parlours and shopping malls. In supermarkets and shopping malls, children heaping carts with junk food and other 'goodies' is a common sight.

How many of our middle class children have used public transport like buses or travelled sleeper class in our trains? How many of our young upper middle class children get fresh air or play outdoor games regularly? [Playing games the way we did when we were young is of course different from cricket coaching or tennis coaching - which of course is a very fashionable and desirable activity today.]

The clothes that our school and college girls and young office goers are wearing are unrecognizable.
Their hair styles would have been unthought-of just a decade ago.
Young children of upper middle class families have grown podgy and fleshy. Their very body structures have changed.


And here are two critical differences:
We were taught to help others, to oblige when some one made a request. Our children do not hesitate to say, 'Sorry but no," when asked for help.
This is the change I find completely unacceptable.

Brought up in a culture where one is trained not to wait to be asked but try to anticipate a need, I find it shocking that children can say, "So boring. I don't want to do this."

Equally shocking is seeing children doing things just for themselves when they could well have done the same things for others. Small things such as serving/passing food at the dinner table, setting plates and fetching water. "I have helped myself. Why should I do it for you?" is often implicit and sometimes explicit. I never fail to ask a child that does this, "Do your parents earn only for themselves? Do your parents cook only for themselves?"

Eating out was a rare treat when we were young. It was a family outing to mark an occasion or celebrate an event. Today when we are not eating out, we are ordering home delivery. We eat out when we are bored, tired of home food, just too tired to cook, or just plain lazy - which means every week almost.

Why these changes?
Perhaps we have indulged our children a lot more than we were ever indulged.

Consider these.
We used to share crayons with our siblings as children. But now we buy each of our children a box.
Our toys, books and clothes were often hand me downs from older siblings and cousins. Our kids have never seen hand me downs.
We swept and cleaned, ran errands, fetched and carried, and had regular chores to do. Very few children today do any of these.
We went to school by walk, bike or public bus. Our children mostly cycle or go by car.

Our lifestyles have changed beyond recognition. But who is to blame? We have allowed a slew of products and brands to dazzle us, suspend our sense of discrimination, and change our spending habits and consumption patterns to the point of loosening the grip that foundational values had on us. We have slowly but surely gravitated towards a lifestyle that is not only un-Indian but also unhealthy and unsustainable.

What then can we expect of our children? With us as role models, can they be any different?

Suddenly after indulging their every whim, and often even before it was even expressed,we expect them as they grow into adolescence to become serious students, hard working, disciplined and diligent. None of which we tried to cultivate when they were younger. We cannot deny them cable tv, mobile phones and pc games after having given them these ourselves.

What we could have done but did not do was to spell out ground rules and strictly adhered to them. We could have denied our children a few of the luxuries we pampered them with. We should have used that magical word 'no' a bit more often than we did. We could have denied them a few of those expensive cravings, or made them work really hard for them.

But to be able to practice denial one needs guts. If you do not want your child to unblinkingly ask you why you denied her things while you indulged your every whim, you have to practise what you advocate. And you have to be seen to practise it. You have to deny yourself stuff you badly want, you have to sacrifice your comfort before those of others, and you have to put others before you. Before denial must come self-denial. At least to the point of getting back on the track of disciplined living. Because you know in your heart of hearts, notwithstanding the shopping sprees, the festive bashes, and the parties, that it was self denial, strict parenting and disciplining that got you where you are. And if you want your children to get there too, the formula cannot be much different.