Choking Children...

Do you remember your teachers from school? I sure remember mine. Most of them were smiling, soft-spoken, supportive, prepared and patient, save the occasional yell to quell the classroom din. Of course, there were exceptions: those that used a cane as a crutch to support their floundering skills, and relied on the bawdy and gaudy to 'engage' the pupils through the hour. Some of them didn't balk at playing Hector and ribbing a fellow. What could thrill the class more than beaming the limelight of embarrassment on a supposed brat or dingbat? The ones that so felt the wood on their palm or knuckles, the chalk on their face, the eraser on their forehead, tears down their cheek, and the ones that snarled or sniggered, they did react. Some, including me, brought their parents to steam the HM, some, I guess, just sobbed or muttered under their breath, while others just got immune. None of them, to the best of my knowledge, chose death as recourse. The most extreme reaction was a lewd expansion of teachers’ initials, and that too among a clique. So, what has changed in the nine years since I passed out of school?

It is irrefutably grim that children are looking at suicide as a solution. Death seems to be snaring ever more of them, and increasingly younger at that. That many of these cases implicate schools and teachers stews the matter further.  I fear sounding flippant, naive and simplistic, but I have to ask. Are children suddenly more sensitive? Even then, what makes them feel helpless enough to attempt a drastic solution, if it is a choice? Most importantly, why does death seem to them to be a solution? 

Heightened sensitivity means one is not only more easily ruffled, but also more deeply. Sensitivity is invariably linked to ideas, feelings and perceptions, especially the person’s self-image. Children, however, are believed to epitomise innocence and playfulness. It should therefore follow that most of their beliefs are flexible and fluid, plastic, capable of being shaped, allowing them to take things in with amazement. Firm beliefs, of course, can be inculcated. And these, like the proverbial oak tree, crash accompanied by tectonic tremors. Remember being told your imaginary friend was imaginary, or Santa Claus existed only in the spirit of Christmas? Equally, staunch beliefs can also be imposed. I wonder if in trying to groom the citizens of tomorrow, the free spirit that is the child is being anchored by too many prudish prescriptions, thus arresting the glide. The degree to which one is responsive to shame and embarrassment, after all, is determined by their sense of esteem and the expectations they have of themselves. Esteem and expectations, in the case of a child, are more likely to have been foisted on them by those around, making the child hard and stiff and brittle. May be the children should be allowed to grow into their roles, given time till their little feet are sufficiently sure and sturdy to fill those shoes of a model citizen.

Let us assume that the ballast the groomers tossed into the balloon – the advice, the disciplinary discourses, the sparking of ambitions  – outweigh their purpose, and are therefore dead and fatal cargo. The flight may be frantic, but what makes it seem forlorn to the children? Unless kids are wising up quite early, it can’t be amiss that they should think their dads are superheroes, and mums miracle workers. So, why wouldn’t a child tug at the arms of her all-powerful protectors, walking between whom she springs, prances and prattles? Could it be that she does reach out, only to grab a fistful of air? Maybe hands-on parenting is outdated and I’m unable to appreciate the virtues of raising kids to be independent.  I am anyway on the outside looking in. Yet, I guess there is a need to be wary of the threshold at which a kid is likely to feel her parents have washed their hands of her. If it’s distressing for her to know Santa is not real, it must be devastating to feel that she has to fend for herself. And, when parents have to rely on a suicide note, which betrays the age of its author through the misspelt words and scrawl, to know what has been weighing their child down, the checkpoint might be too far behind to be even spotted in the rear-view mirror.

A child today may be more vulnerable, but it is still baffling that death should find its way into a child’s ever-changing gamut of thoughts, and be able to hog enough of her attention to actually coax her into action. Why would a nine or ten year old contemplate death? If this is a sign of the information glut and the ease of its availability, the task of monitoring what the child hears, sees and learns does fall on those around; assuming, of course, that they have not discussed death at length  and fascinated her. And, that assumption should hold. Who, after all, can claim to know everything about death?

Lastly, suicides are mostly regarded as being specific to humans, though there have been not widely endorsed suggestions that they are prevalent in the animal kingdom as well. Be it a Rani Padmini seeking to preserve her honour, or the lovelorn Romeo seeking to escape the bonds of a seemingly meaningless life, humans apparently are capable of differentiating between survival and a life lived well. The latter predicated on their living for something valued more than their own lives. One would hope the child, still busy dipping her fingers into all those sauces and syrups and sundaes, slurping the different charmingly coloured fruit juices and jellies, and getting caught with her hand in the cookie jar, literally, listing all the dolls and video game titles that are yet to be hers, fighting with the sciences and maths and the languages, and gazing at the butterflies and flowers in her garden is a long way from being intoxicated by life. And if alcohol has a drinking age, so should life.