Children are said to be gifts from God. A birth in a family always heralds joy, happiness and hope. But it can later turn in a nightmare. Evidently, children are meant to be loved and protected. Parents’ loftiest dream, their life-long struggle is to see their siblings climb the social ladder and be happy.

With the revolutionary concepts of Sigmund Freud and others in psychology, the child’s happiness has become the be-all and the end-all of life. Education has evolved into a child-centred activity: the development of the child is the focal point. Gone are the days when it was believed that children were to be seen and not heard.

In the past, they were mercilessly ill-treated and humiliated as in the world of Dickens. They were robbed of their childhood and suffered inhuman treatment. The generation of baby boomers has been traumatised by such awful experiences. With the social change from extended to nuclear family, the pendulum has swung to the other extreme. Nowadays children are some kind of gods, untouchable and so precious as to be insulated from all social evils.

Parents will try their utmost to give the best to their children. Deep inside, they suffer from guilt and fear of shirking their parental responsibilities. To ease their conscience, they believe that material comfort makes children happy. Toddlers are offered all the gadgets modern technology can offer.

Today, ironically, parents are scared of children. Nothing can be refused to the demigods. They only have to stretch out their palms. The words of children are reckoned as gospel: teachers hitherto respected and emulated are ridiculed, sneered at and even jailed with their false and malicious accusations.

Parents remain at their beck and call. Shocking as it may appear, some parents have even divorced because of the tension fuelled by the negative upbringing of children. Pa-rents’ lives are governed by the whims and caprices of their offspring. It is the child-cult that we are witnessing. When the child sneezes, the whole family edifice crumbles down.

As the little darlings develop into teenagers, they take complete control and exploit the situation to their advantage. They hold parents as hostages and even blackmail them. Lax authority over the years has moulded the child into a rebellious and spoilt being.

Life has become hell for parents. We always vociferate on the rooftops about the miseries of childhood but we keep a long silence on those of parenthood. If young people are having a party, for example, parents are asked to leave the house. Their presence merely spoils the fun. What else can the poor parents do but obey?

Permissiveness pervades the modern family. Through their laxity, parents are largely responsible for such a lamentable situation. The upbringing of children, if mishandled, can spell havoc to the family. Nowadays, a good old-fashioned spanking is out of the question. Parents cannot shout at their children for fear of causing irreparable psychological scars.

Caning at school is illegal. Children can do as they like with impunity. They are taught their rights but little do they know of their duties. Many are uncontrollable and even violent to their parents. Filial gratitude is absent from their vocabulary. They live in an age of greed blinded by materialism. Parents make huge sacrifices rather than see their child’s whims frustrated.

The day we allow indiscipline into the family will be the time to nail our coffins. Punish-ment, in whatever form, deterrent, retributive or reformative, is most welcome; a little dose is vital for child-formation. Otherwise we can say in unison ‘Spare the rod, spoil the child’.

Philip LI CHING HUM