In the last article in this series, we drew contrasts with the past and highlighted changes in the orientation of contemporary parents towards education.
It was asserted that parents these days do not “push” their children in the same manner as parents in the past did.
They tend to attempt to sound reasonable and go to great lengths to get their children to do what they themselves took as their sworn duty when they were children.
We attributed this change in orientation to improvements in the economic circumstances of families as past sacrifices and single-minded pursuit of education began to bear fruit to different extents across the spectrum.
We also attributed this to a somewhat misplaced sense of duty and guilt that parents bring to their roles in ensuring that their children put in the right effort towards education.
Some of you have asked me to explain this further, so let me start this article with an elaboration of this observation.
Parental duty and guilt
I REFERRED to a “misplaced sense of duty and guilt” among contemporary parents when it comes to their involvement and role in their children’s education.
The word “misplaced” was used because the sense of duty that parents had in the past was set and understood by parents themselves.
They also played this out without any manipulated negotiations with their children.
They knew that they had to support their children with a conducive space, the all-important school bag with its standard contents, nourishment, and motivation through personal involvement and engagement.
That was considered to be parental “duty”.
Now, the requirements have been manipulated and the list has become both customised to individual children and unending depending on the fancies and family-political takes of the ever-learning young negotiator.
I then mentioned a misplaced sense of guilt that contemporary parents are saddled with.
This feeling of guilt is rooted in the fact that with time parents continued to enjoy ever-improving conditions of existence.
Second and third-generation parents remember studying using a homemade “lantern” that comprised a wick at the top of the bottle filled with kerosene.
This was replaced by hurricane lanterns followed by benzine lamps.
Later still, electrical lights entered the household.
For those in rural areas, if you could not afford a private power generator, the benzine lamp was still king.
Only those of us who went through and experienced the comforts that came through these advances in technology will know how much of a difference it made when it came to studying.
Later generations know nothing of this sort and take their everyday comforts for granted.
The same types of changes occurred with technological advances in cooking facilities.
The open-air cooking with a piece of wire or iron rods over two concrete blocks or stones was replaced by wood stoves and the all-important primus.
Later came Chinese cookers with wicks and wood stoves with ovens.
And still later, we had gas stoves followed by electrical stoves and cookers.
Each of these eased the difficulties in preparing those all-important meals for children.
After all, they had to be fed right to be able to perform right.
Now we have the most convenient microwave oven and ready-prepared meals.
These advances in technology have significant social implications that are closely linked to family cohesion and family values.
When the earlier mothers prepared meals by pounding and grinding ingredients in those wooden pounders and flat stones, there was a different type of love involved in that arduous labour.
This was followed by lighting those cooking fires by painstakingly blowing through pipes and using carefully cut and dried firewood.
Then came the main family pot for the curries and the main pot for the rice, etc.
There was no need to gaze indulgently and decide on which pot to choose for the day because there was no such choice.
The meal that came out of this was respected and eaten with no remonstrations from anyone.
And the offspring reciprocated with a deep love and appreciation for that toil amid the limited conditions of existence.
It is this type of family unit that was grounded in deprived conditions with no thought of luxuries or choices that ingrained in children an acute understanding and deep respect for the labour of love exerted by parents.
It also guided them in understanding the unwavering need for hard work in one’s own pursuit of success.
It needs to be also acknowledged that contemporary parents still carry the same burden of bringing up children, putting them through the education system, and having high hopes for them in the path of life.
One of the key differences is that the salary-earning mother apparently no longer toils at home like the mothers of old.
Advances in technology also make it look like she has it easy in comparative terms when it comes to feeding, clothing, and providing comfort to her offspring.
Nothing could be further from the truth as we all would know.
It is just that in terms of visible reality, contemporary mothers appear not to toil like the mothers of old.
Holding a full-time job while shouldering the bulk of the burden of household expectations calls for superhuman effort and sacrifice.
The sad thing is that the visible reality does not portray emphatically enough what these mothers go through in looking after their children.
Coming back to the point being discussed, the children of yesteryear developed a huge respect for the sacrifices of their parents.
This was one of the main reasons why they took to education in the singleminded manner that they did.
Burning the midnight oil was considered necessary and normal if one wanted to succeed through education.
There was virtually no choice in terms of exerting effort to reap the rewards.
There was no choice in terms of when one got out of bed, what one ate, what type of school bag one had, what was in that bag, what one took to school for lunch, how one went to school, and when one came back home after school.
There was no choice about helping parents with household chores, finishing one’s homework, and studying at home; you simply did it as it was an expected part of everyday life.
This sharing of hardships, family aspirations, successes, and failures forged very close bonds among family members.
Sacrifices and contributions from different members were acutely felt, understood, and appreciated.
Thus, as the conditions of existence of the family improved, the burdens that were borne by parents appeared to become lighter.
It did not require the same level of sacrifice and effort to get a child through education.
In fact, with economic success, a malaise spiced with a resigned sense of guilt has set into the psyche of parents.
They ask themselves: “Why should we put our children through the rigours and discomforts of educational struggles when we do not really need it anymore? We need to do everything to ensure that our children do not have to endure the discomforts and deprivations that we went through.”
Thus, parents have opted to focus on spoiling their children to the point of silliness because they feel a sense of guilt in denying their children.
In the process, children have learned to negotiate for returns beyond the basic comforts of the family if their parents want them to “study hard”.
Meeting new fancies and demands and making sure that their children appear “ahead” of their peers has now become one of the main yardsticks for success as parents.
I will develop this further next
• DR SUBHASH APPANNA is a senior USP academic who has been writing on issues of historical and national significance. The views expressed here are his alone and not necessarily shared by this newspaper or his employers.
