Our pasts become the foundations for our futures. As soon as we are born, our experiences on Earth begin to shape us, and make us into the people we grow up to be. Psychologists as early as Freud have proven that childhood affects adulthood. We are alive and we grow, our brains absorbing in everything around us and every miniscule piece of information we gain affecting who we are. We become who we are from what we know, and what we see; shaping our beliefs and standards on all the experience we have obtained and making sense of present situations from what we’ve already learnt. Our personalities thrive on our lives, as we become individual people, each with our own perspectives on the world we have came to know. We grow from the world, but what are our children being exposed to? Take a look at the world are future generations are being brought up in.
Everything that happens affects us, even a simple children’s TV show can have such a vast negative outcome. Tom and Jerry, a classical comic cartoon of a cat and mouse forever at war displays to our children a range of violent acts. Our children’s channels are full of violence and fighting, some could even be deemed disturbing. Yet we see such programmes as harmless cartoons, not realising that we are brining our children up with violence and understanding what effect this may have on them. Why do we allow our children to learn violence at such a young age? Young boys especially take a licking to weaponry, explosions, gore, violence and villains. They often think of these topics as “cool” which is considered “normal” for all boys to watch and enjoy. Is this what we want our children to base their lives on? Entertainment through violence? Imagine how this can affect them as a person, let alone their current life and adulthood. Production companies therefore make more violent programmes, often increasing the levels of violence to appeal to their bloodthirsty audience in order to gain views.
Children learn that these violent shows are considered enjoyable to watch, and so they sit on their sofas and learn to relish in the bloodshed on the screens. Do I appear too uptight and unrealistic? Perhaps you should watch the level of violence displayed and count the amount of unsuitable material is broadcasted to your vulnerable children. Similar to the butterfly effect ,(a butterfly flaps its wings in one part of the world, a hurricane is created in another) these minuscule things our children see everyday are absorbed into their brains and self conscious’s which could affect them later on. Today they watch violence, maybe one day they will be on the news due to theirs. Seeds are planted.
Children are raised and indoctrinated as soon as they are old enough to understand. Supposedly many Palestinian children are taught to hate Jews, in order to glorify “jihad” (holy war), violence, death and child martyrdom almost from birth, as an essential part of their culture and destiny. This is just one mere example of harmful views being opposed on children. Good and evil are a point of view. Children are being taught violence, racism and wrongdoings from the start of their lives. A popular phrase is “these are the children of the future”. Do we really want them to see the world through disappointed eyes, full of fear, hate and bitterness? The fruit rots before it can ripen.
Some children gain a negative perspective on the world and have to struggle and suffer each day on earth. According to UNICEF, 25,000 children die each day due to poverty. Around 27-28 percent of all children in developing countries are estimated to be underweight or stunted. Their lives are at peril and stunted before they’ve even had the chance to thrive. They learn the world is cruel and full of selfish injustice. For the 1.9 billion children from the developing world, there are: 640 million without adequate shelter (1 in 3), 400 million with no access to safe water (1 in 5) and 270 million with no access to health services (1 in 7). 10.6 million died in 2003 before they reached the age of 5 (same as children population in France, Germany, Greece and Italy.) 1.4 million die each year from lack of access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation. 2.2 million children die each year because they are not immunized. Nobody should live like this, children come into the world to die or enter a life that can be viewed as not worth living.
What lives are these for people so precious? Of the 50 million refugees and displaced people in the world, at an estimate half are children. War is the primary factor in the creation of child refugees. In the last decade, war has killed more than 2 million children, wounded another 6 million, and orphaned approximately 1 million. Children also flee their homes because they fear various forms of abuse such as rape, sexual slavery, and child labour.
In the Philippines, UNICEF estimated that there are 60,000 child prostitutes and many of the 200 brothels in the notorious Angeles City offer children for sex. The median age for entering into prostitution among all children interviewed was 13 years. An estimated 211 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 are working around the world, according to the International Labour Organization. Of these, 120 million children are working full time to help support their impoverished families forced child laborers work in conditions that have no resemblance to a free employment relationship. They receive little or no pay and have no control over their daily lives. They are often forced to work beyond their physical capacity and under conditions that seriously threaten their health, safety and development. In many cases their most basic rights, such as freedom of movement and expression, are suppressed. They are subject to physical and verbal abuse. Even in cases where they are not physically confined to their workplace, their situation may be so emotionally traumatizing and isolating that once drawn into forced labour they are unable to conceive of a way to escape. Imagine the impact on youth forced into a lifestyle they never deserved. They have learnt poor behaviour before constructive morals and so may base their values and behaviour on the previous.
So many children suffer at such an early age, they deserve so much more. The prevalence of childhood neglect ranged from 3.2% in New Hampshire, United States, to 10% in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, 19.4% in Singapore, and 36.4% in Pusan, Korea. Abused children can be severely abused mentally as well as physically. Some even becoming abusers themselves as they have learnt this behaviour form their parents.Around the world, children are singled out for recruitment by both armed forces and armed opposition groups, and exploited as combatants. Approximately 250,000 children under the age of 18 are thought to be fighting in conflicts around the world, and hundreds of thousands more are members of armed forces who could be sent into combat at any time. Although most child soldiers are between 15 and 18 years old, significant recruitment starts at the age of 10 and the use of even younger children has been recorded. Children who are too young to marry, finish school, start their own families or even fully understand war, are given guns and the pressures of life and death.
However, could exposing our children to the harsh realities of life give them a realistic perspective? It could teach children that we need change and justice, and motivate them to aim to create a better future. For example, in the 20th centenary, we switched from Oliver Twist/Jane Eyre-style tyrannical abusive treatment of children to one in which children are cared for and even indulged. Could this be due to the children not wanting to treat their own offspring in such an abusive manner, thus creating a child-rearing revolution? It could still be argued that children are too young to comprehend and cope with such evils of the world and that their innocence should be maintained for as long as possible before gently introducing them to world dilemmas.
Childhood is an amazing experience of growth and personal development. Why do we have to taint such amazing beauty? We welcome our future generations into a world full of hardship and wrongdoing and teach them the same values that caused these problems in the first place. What a fantastic first impression! We are striving for change in an oppressive world, but how can anything change if we keep child upbringing the same? Such a warm welcome greets those entering the world. How can we expose our children to such evil before they learn the good? What’s more important than the start of life?
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