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Disclaimer – Please do not worry about the exclamations, please be entirely ALARMED and on guard so that you always remember my write up especially when you have a meeting with a teenager. That meeting must be handled with respect. I can assure you the teenager will respect you in return too 🙂
Yes ! Many adults hurt kids. They hurt teenagers by making them conscious about their appearance, their grades, their behaviour, their verbal skills and their entire existence basically. If these trends are not snipped, they will gradually lead to social suicide. We as a society, have taken it upon ourselves to encourage personality deterioration. Our obsession with a certain kind of look, a certain kind of personality, job, grade and presentation of skills is not good for human development. Some parents don’t even know that their child is constantly trying to impress them. They have no inkling that some of their children are under pressure to do be perfect in the eyes of their grandparents, uncles, aunties, cousins, the ever changing neighbour and beloved society conscious family friends.
According to Wikipedia, there are 800,000 suicides worldwide every year and 135,000 are Indians residing in India. There is a suicide amongst teenagers every hour in India. Its not these figures that are alarming as every one of us know someone in our neighbourhood or community who has committed suicide or has been on the verge of doing so. But the crazy throw ball of comments, disastrous and insane expectations don’t seem to stop ! I have given a few examples that we as adults need to put a complete halt on.
Disappointed or sarcastic tone ” Oh I thought you would look like your dad, you turned out like your mum” , ” A few shades lighter and you would look like me” ” You are so skinny, don’t you eat anything?” “”You have gained weight, its not suiting you” , “OMG, you have so many pimples”, ” Your moustache ! (and then ..snicker)” You are shooting up, not short as your sister or brother who’s genes did you get? , and you how come you don’t have your sister’s or parent’s height? ” How come you’re so tanned? Have you been playing in the sun because your parents are not dark? ” So an innocent child who is adopted, will feel excluded, ugly and targeted, a child who isn’t adopted will also feel conscious and ugly !! …And then you turn around to see who passes these comments. Surely someone who is not perfect themselves ! In fact they are conditioned to say all this as they have been told all this when they were young 😉
If these trends of labelling and unsolicited commenting are not snipped, they will gradually lead to mass social suicide !! According to Wikipedia, there are 800,000 suicides worldwide every year and 135,000 are Indians residing in India.
As we all know, that one thing leads to another, and these comments on looks lead to insecurity amongst most teenagers. When we were young, and constantly being told on our looks, we would have no choice but to let these comments evaporate. We basically had to zip our mouths. We didn’t even know how to emote, or fight back and we were conditioned to nod when an elder person would say something we don’t like. I am still like that. If someone tells me ” finally you have started dressing well, i honestly just stare at that person in bewilderment. That is something i don’t even think about when I meet a person. I see a person who I am sharing the world with. I want to share knowledge and nice thoughts with people when I meet them.
Most of us carry those statements made by other people about “OUR” looks somewhere in the back of our mind. These are sticker comments that we should try and erase from our own minds and from the minds of our children. Our mirror just seems wrong when we trust sticker comments more. We have already been labelled ‘dark, thin, fat, small faced, big faced, fat nose, thin nose, big eyes, small eyes, untidy, presentable, tall, short, pimple face, clear face, dumb, silly, smart, ugly, pretty and handsome.
The solution is STOP COMMENTING AND GIVING UNNECESSARY LABELS. Nobody wants them and nobody needs them. Just introspect, lead your own life, work on your own personality and looks. Do not worry if someone else’s face is not matching their parents’ face or if their career path isn’t what you expected !!!!!!!!!
I would like to translate this write up in all languages. Do let me know if there are any translators interested to do so 🙂
Neeta @ edooism
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