Your Children Are Not Your Future

Being a parent is tough! Yes I know that. I think it is my toughest job so far. It is considerably more tougher than  being an analyst or any kind of future job that I may involved in. It is even tougher than any of my graduate school courses. It is requires hard work, patience, persistence, intelligence, strategic planning, lots of financial calculations and a bit of politics too.

But unlike driving which needs a license, all living human being is 'allowed' to be a parent, fertility condition aside without any formal requirement. No matter how unhealthy (again fertility condition aside), financially unsound, mentally unstable you are no law whether human or divine will prevent you to have a kid, or many kids  (unless you are living in China). No wonder that children in today's society is still the most abused member of the society. Lack of attention which will hindrance their emotional development and lack of education that will undermine their intellectual advancement is only milder problem. While more serious problem is involving mental and physical abuse.

The world is not fair, especially to children. All of this unfairness starts from the children's reason d' etre which is not correctly formulated by their parents. So, let me ask you this, why do you have kids? Sensible person will answer 'to continue my legacy', 'to continue my business' or 'to continue my idealism of contributing to the society'. Although those answers still involved a lot of 'my' but its degree of selfishness can be considered lower than next. More selfish answer would be 'to take care of me when I am old', 'I want to make my house crowded', and 'I like to be surrounded by lots of grandchildren'. These means that you burdening your child even before he/she were born. Why would your child care if 'the house is crowded'?, he/she might like it quiet or why would your children care if you like to be surrounded by lots of grandchildren. But the worse would be parents who do not know why they would have children or to have children because God told them to.

Do not treat your children as an investment for yourself, but instead treat them as investment for themselves, for the society, for the human race. Parenthood involves more than just feeding and paying for education which many people naively thinking it is. Though none of us has the power to fully control the future, good parents will try as far as possible to create a path that which can be used to 'ensure' their children's future. They will try to build the lower foundation of the 'future home' that their children will live in. It is essential to create a condition that enable our future generation to be able to live better rather than leaving it entirely to the toss the coin (read : destiny). Only that way that our legacy can live on.

Paradoxically, do not raise your child the way you being raised. It is not necessarily bad way, but it is certainly not the 'best' way considering the dynamic environment that the children will face. Teaching the same thing all over again (no matter how different the teaching method is) will not give any value added. Show them new things, that way you also will learn. Show the new experience, even the one that you have not familiar with. And, show them that they are much better than you, because that is the only way that you can be regarded as successful parents.

Your children are not your future, they have their own.