.. by Prof Rahmat Karim Baig

I had written a very short article on the subject given above and received very kind  and friendly opinions  with many nice instances  from some friends and readers. I did not write it as if I am a hardcore orthodox nor I am against female education. I fully understand the significance of female education and its role in the modern times. We have to give education to both gender equally. W e need female teachers, doctors, nurses, social workers, leaders, reformers and so on. The role of females cannot be minimized. There have been highly qualified women in history who have contributed  a lot to the weal of the society of their times.

The modern burden of cost of living has put a great responsibility on both sexes. One bread winner in a family cannot afford to feed the whole family so women have to play their role but they were not idle in the past either. They took part in the farming, agriculture works, domestic duties, raising dairy products by keeping live stock and so many other duties. The Kho society has been called ‘ ourat abad’ that is a Kho family’s economic position is positioned  and balanced when the housewife is hard working and a hard task master. I think nobody will deny it or at least have the say to contradict it. Now the present situation is very different. The educated  females either in employment or jobless have forgotten their erstwhile role- to help to good house keeping. They spend a good chunk of their leisure time playing with mobile or watching TV dramas and during this process they neglect their duty as mother or a responsible member of the house to look after the kids who go out and stray and suffer badly.

I have my personal observation that kids of two years who are called toddlers are about but the mother is busy in talking  over cell phone  to some of her friends  and is obsessed grossly that the cries of her child fall on deaf ears and the father is busy with his cell, busy with facebook, so the toddler is abandoned and hurts him/herself and the parent know about it much after the damage has taken place. This side of modern life and preoccupation of parents with cell phone instead of attending to their kids, playing with them, taking them out for walk and giving them names of the natural objects around us, teaching them names of trees, flowers, crops etc. is no more done by the parents. This is negligence of the duties of raising kids and a great drawback as responsible parents. This is leading to split of the family life and members of one family live in their own virtual world and family life and bonds get hurt and sometime very badly. This phase of male female ( married) life is leading us to a dangerous path.

The west has experienced it and have controlled it after much disaster but we have to be careful from this moment onward. What I like to do is to take the middle path, the path of moderation that will keep balance but extremism is not an acceptable behaviour and may cause irremediable damages to our society. If one is not married or has got no kid then he has the leisure to play with the magic devices as long as he likes  or has endurance to bear. He/she is scot free and none will blame him/her, but for parents it becomes a big duty to attend to their kids first and have the feeling of duty as parent to raise a good member of the society. It was the old people who felt the need of raising good children with a sense of right and wrong, rights and responsibilities, love family members, love nature etc. Just procreation without taking responsibility is a disservice to the community if one fails to help his child in his/ her homework and remains focused on social media. That is an irresponsible citizenship .. Prof Rahmat Karim Baig, Chitral 09 May 2022