Why did you beget me?

.. by Prof Rahmat Karim Baig

A couple of years ago when mobile technology was not as advanced as it is today, we had certain social problems which have now multiplied, and families with more than two children going to schools or colleges had to be paid properly and in time. Many parents had complaints about the expenses of their children at college level. They paid out of their small monthly income to meet those expenses but the children were always unhappy over the amount they received and wanted to wangle more mostly from their mothers whom they found softer compared to fathers.

One of the graduates of the college where I taught unluckily found no job for a couple of years and was much depressed. His parents expected that he should get any petty job and bear his own expenses while the parents had to pay for the other school going children but he was not ready for petty job and a big one was nowhere to be found. Forced by empty pocket he , one day, lost temper before his parents and asked ‘why did you beget me if you had no sources to pay for my needs’? This was an unusual manner and had never been asked by any son, let alone an educated one, and the parents were speechless for a moment but then tried to explain their financial position in various versions but the son was not satisfied and left the house for many years, discontinued contacts but found a job and then worked for some time  and found that  how hard it was to make saving from a small amount of salary, and realized his past behavior.

It is a social question for all of us as how to manage domestic finances to meet all the expected and unexpected demands of every day life. The prices are skyrocketing and the school fee also have the same trend. The school uniform and pocket money etc. multiply day by day but the sources of income don’t increase or multiply if one ever expects it but I personally don’t have such optimism. We, the people of Chitral have a strange psyche- we spend what we earn and don’t care for saving, don’t put by some of our income for rainy days, always run to emulate the well off families. It is because of lack of training of  parenting. We beget babies but we don’t give them good training in our homes from the very beginning when they are toddlers.

We have got many bad habits. We tell lies  in front of our kids  and expect them to be honest. We have inhouse rows and shouting in the presence of our kids and ignore the fact that they are learning from our behavior. We have to be very honest in early training of our kids and give the society a member of good behavior, good character, good manners but we are failing in this basic duty. Procreation is one thing but good early childhood training is a much heavy task and parents do have the responsibility to teach all good and no bad habit or we will be doing a great disservice to the coming generation and Chitrali society as a whole. The title of this article is an out come of our bad parenting and failure of  imparting good values to our children. .. Prof. Rahmat Karim Baig, Chitral 27 Mar 2022

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *