Teenage dreams
I am just another 19 years old trying to make sense of what's happening around. I have no idea about mentoring or parenting, but I know elders are really messing it up for teenagers. I always hear people say that teenage is a very complex phase of life and its very hard to control these teens. But all these people do not take the effort to understand why it is so complicated. It starts by forcing a toddler to perform something when the guests are around to body-shaming. And it is something that we see a lot in an Indian family. It is not just your close family, but even your faraway relatives that you never knew existed even have an opinion about your looks and life. It starts with a simple
" you are very tanned" or "you have put so much weight" to "why didn't you go for medicine' or "why are you getting married to a person of a different religion". Everyone gets to have an opinion about your life except you in an Indian family. Adults treat a teenager as a child and expect them to behave like an adult. Even though the concept that "professional courses are the only respectable course and anything other can only be a hobby" kind of thoughts are comparatively decreasing, it is still a thing. Even if you are Picasso or Ai Pacino, brown parents want them to enroll in an engineering college or in similar courses to make a standard living, like to own a car, a double story home, all the fancy appliances and plenty of gold. And by making this happen, parents often forget to make their child understand the power of dreaming, following a passion, and staying honest to yourself. And the result will have a bunch of young people is always frustrated, arrogant, and confused.
And nobody knows how to fix this. When I was a teenager, I wanted someone to tell me it was okay to feel certain things. It was okay to mess up. but in reality, what happens is you feel unworthy of anything. parents unintentionally make their children feel like a 'trophy' about which they want to brag to others. there is only a fine line between being supportive and exploitation. I have had a friend who was really good at singing and his parents very proud, which eventually started turning into forced practice hours and shows. and as a result, he stopped singing all at once because he was feeling very pressurized. In other instances, I have another friend who was very talented in movie making. All of us believed in him. But because of parental pressure, he is giving up his passion and is doing a professional course for the sake of it and is very unhappy. It hurts to see your friends this way you know, even strangers who are stuck in a 9 to 5 job, who have great vision, but are stuck in all the materialistic things. it feels sick to see people slowly losing the spark they had as an early teenager. it is sick to see their eyes empty of dreams. how terrible it would we when people forget to dream because all the dreams they ever had have been plucked away by others that now they are afraid even to dream. do we really need that?
" you are very tanned" or "you have put so much weight" to "why didn't you go for medicine' or "why are you getting married to a person of a different religion". Everyone gets to have an opinion about your life except you in an Indian family. Adults treat a teenager as a child and expect them to behave like an adult. Even though the concept that "professional courses are the only respectable course and anything other can only be a hobby" kind of thoughts are comparatively decreasing, it is still a thing. Even if you are Picasso or Ai Pacino, brown parents want them to enroll in an engineering college or in similar courses to make a standard living, like to own a car, a double story home, all the fancy appliances and plenty of gold. And by making this happen, parents often forget to make their child understand the power of dreaming, following a passion, and staying honest to yourself. And the result will have a bunch of young people is always frustrated, arrogant, and confused.
And nobody knows how to fix this. When I was a teenager, I wanted someone to tell me it was okay to feel certain things. It was okay to mess up. but in reality, what happens is you feel unworthy of anything. parents unintentionally make their children feel like a 'trophy' about which they want to brag to others. there is only a fine line between being supportive and exploitation. I have had a friend who was really good at singing and his parents very proud, which eventually started turning into forced practice hours and shows. and as a result, he stopped singing all at once because he was feeling very pressurized. In other instances, I have another friend who was very talented in movie making. All of us believed in him. But because of parental pressure, he is giving up his passion and is doing a professional course for the sake of it and is very unhappy. It hurts to see your friends this way you know, even strangers who are stuck in a 9 to 5 job, who have great vision, but are stuck in all the materialistic things. it feels sick to see people slowly losing the spark they had as an early teenager. it is sick to see their eyes empty of dreams. how terrible it would we when people forget to dream because all the dreams they ever had have been plucked away by others that now they are afraid even to dream. do we really need that?
As a brown teenager, i totally agree with what u said
ReplyDeleteyou are so dedicated to go through this and comment. :D . we are on the same page
Delete