When child is the bother of man

Child and teen crimes, though a regular national occurence, suddenly topped the charts this past week in TN. A classroom murder, a gang rape by trusted friends and a spate of suicides has left parents and teachers petrified and terrified. Every ward in every household or school must have received a second, suspicious look from a paranoid elder scouting either for a lingering offender or an innocent victim.

But the real unease in the society of elders has been caused by the imminent possibilities and fears of violent backlash against themselves. Hell hath no fury like a child scorned. Just a couple of days back, a student had left three suicide notes directly blaming his teacher for inciting his fatal act. Another teacher hid himself inside the staff room after being threatened by a student with a repeat of the Chennai incident. Common, and sometimes even judicial, wisdom has it that a child witness is akin to God’s evidence and can never be false. But by such standards, most teachers and even parents would be in the dock today. Stressed out juveniles invariably hold their immediate guardians as the source of their troubles. It is premature, rather immature, to glean a trend, but with tots and teens, used to displaying innocent protests, now taking it out physically on their real or imagined tormentors, a threshold has indeed been crossed.

Fear apart, such events put the community of teachers and parents in a quandary. Even in a deterministic, material and scientific world dictated by black or white cold logic, life’s daily decisions are mostly subjective and wallow in grey areas. Every moment and happening throws up situations that have no off-the-shelf solutions. A child/student, with its mind, moods and manners ever in a state of flux is the perfect personification of such inconsistency. Child rearing is a bigger challenge than child bearing. Its handlers have no easy task, howsoever experienced and mature they themselves be. Even the most sane and stable teacher cannot judge when advice becomes abuse or chastising turns corporal. A touchy toddler can make even a trained tutor seem like a terrible tormentor.

The milieu outside homes and schools are not quite comforting for Ps & Ts either. With rising awareness and activism vis-a-vis child abuse in society and courts, dealing with children has become a minefield. Besides the laws of all lands, for good reasons, offer stringent protection even to severe juvenile crimes. The adult victim will have to necessarily share the posthumous honours and sympathies with his/her killer for the simple reason that the latter is of an age unbefitting of the act, despite the act! In these cases, the death is a personal tragedy while doing to death is a social malaise. Now, that can be no cosolation to prospective victims or victims’ families. The worst part is the arm of the law like police, the usual punching bags, cannot be blamed in a big way for lapses, for state protection or prevention in these cases is a sheer impossibility.

Between teachers and parents, the latter face a bigger problem, mainly because they are ignorant of it. Few parents know their children really well. This is not to suggest that all is amiss with their wards, but a parent generally tends to superimpose his/her pet impression on the child and believes what he or she wants to. When a teacher or outsider complains about a child w.r.t studies or behaviour, the instinctive tendency of a parent is to challenge, not check, thus bypassing early warnings of deviant behaviour. Even good teachers probably may turn out to be difficult parents. But children are quite aware of this indulgent parental eye and also know how to tap this to their advantage, in innocent ways to begin with and God knows how else as they grow. Crimes as the recent ones are also an indictment of such parental ignorance or even indifference.

Of course, parents have their alibis. Children today are subject to a maze of outside influences even in case of watchful parents. Much of a child’s activities happen outside the horizon of the parent. The sudden genarational leap in media and gadget options has created a huge gap with the child sprinting ahead leaving clueless parents behind. Therefore, a child can be right under a parent’s nose and still get away with a prank or even criminal act with the latter not even having scent of it. It is difficult to guess if your adolescent darling in the adjacent room is preparing for exams or preparing to become a Karnataka minister! Matters are made worse when the parents themselves out-kid their kids! Most kiddish forays are invariably initiated by such juvenile parents, albeit, in the guise of their child’s wish but actually to scratch their own itch. Likewise, quality family time in the evenings is sacrificed to prime-time entertainment of super singers and soaps, allowing the child dangerous privacy.

The jump from mischief to murder is indeed no minor matter. One hopes it is only an aberration.

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