To Live in Fear or To Live?

An incident today got me thinking – we as parents put so much fear psychosis in our kids that we rend them incapable of doing anything different themselves. Such a small incident – my son was having fun and bathing in the rain. It was raining heavily and lightening as well. Suddenly I hear screaming. Someone started shouting at him to staying outdoors for the fear that lightening may fall!!!! How absurd is that? Here I am telling him to take a shower out in the rains, to have fun, to breathe and enjoy his childhood – and there they are – telling him to stop breathing at all!!! That got me thinking – Indian kids almost never dare to do anything different because every time they want to do that, we parents put a fear in their psyche. Don’t do this, don’t do that – it’s as if they have to ask our permission even if they want to breathe. Why can’t we let them be – let them enjoy who they are, let them explore everything tats around. It doesn’t guarantee any safety – but that’s ok. They will get hurt at times, but they will recover from it, with new experience and new insights about the world around them. What is more important – that we shield them from every damn experience such that they have no adventures to talk of when they grow up – or that they get hurt, but make several happy memories, learning to explore the world around them, making their own judgements, coming to their own conclusions, taking their own decisions. Does one gain knowledge by just studying in an expensive college? No. I gained more experience from living away from my parents when in hostel, than any college ever taught me. Why is it that no indian kids go trekking or climbing mountains? It’s simple. We as parents are over protective about them and we do not want them to do anything different. I have a cousin who went trekking. The first time he went, his mother called me up to tell him to stop from going. I alternately told her that it is completely safe for him to go and that she shouldn’t worry about it. Just because her son was trying to do something that no one in our family had done before, she was dead against it! Why are we so worried about being accepted? Why can’t each person decide for themselves what they want to do and how they want to do it? How can someone taking a shower in rain fall dead? How can someone going to a trek die? We are Indians and Hinduism is a huge part of our culture which teaches rebirth, life after death and philosophies like this. And yet, all we are worried about ever is dying. The extent is such that we even get scared to breathe, lest we contract any disease!!! How can people live like this, in fear, preaching fear, teaching fear, living fear! That is not what life is for. Life is meant to be lived, enjoyed, irrespective of what adventures it may hold! I refuse to live in fear or to teach my kids to be afraid! Let them live and learn, so will I.