4. "The worst of times." Is this an accurate description of a child's life today?
The beginning of one's life, when one begins to understand and appreciate the world around them, starts as a child. In the past, we always associate a child's life to be the most carefree, happy and worry-free period of someone's life. However, as society progresses and technology advances, the children suddenly find themselves needing to learn more, do more and play less. However, as a child's life becomes worse and worse, I believe that it is not the worst. This will be examined through the child themselves, their families and the society at large.
Due to rapid technological advances, information is but a hand's distance away. As such, children nowadays can get hold of information much more easily than children of the past. Therefore, a child today is easily exposed to adult thinkings and tend to mature faster.
Happiness mind-map
Happy (Real Life album)
The Happy LifeIn other words, a child now is no longer as carefree and happy as a child in the past as they now have the worries of adults. However, many of them do not know how to soothen this frustration and they resort to means that may hurt themselves in the end. This can be seen by then increase in juvenile crimes in the present society. This is not only due to the things that youngsters and children read, but also cartoons and movies that they watch and games that they play. Therefore, it is extremely important that children are not exposed to the wrong ideas and way of thinking. For example, in a recent bookfair, a porn comic is actually placed in the children's section and it had invoked much protests from the public due to their negligence. So as to see, a child's life is no longer as innocent and worry-free as before.
In this affluent society, it is hard to make a living for many people, much less than to enjoy a luxurious life. Therefore, many parents work long hours in order to provide for he family. There is also an increasing number of no-child or one-child families, especially in China due to the one-child policy. Many would think that this only child would be pampered by his or her parents and live a very happy life, but this is not always true. With no sisters or brothers, he or she will be very lonely, especially if both parents are working. As an only child, the parents will also pin all of their hopes on the child to become a successful adult in the future. As such, not only is the child lonely, but also stressed. They may have many toys and games, but what us the use of there's no one to play with? If there are siblings in a family, there will also be constant competition to be better than, or at least equal to each other. This is a scenario that will always happen as long as humans compare one another. All of the above adds to the stress and unhappiness level if the child.
Last but most importantly, is the role society plays in a child's life. The elitist society that challenges each child to become the crème of the crop. In Singapore, everyone tries their best to get into EM1 in primary school in the past and then into the special stream or top schools for their secondary school education, and finally into good universities for their tertiary education. Even though the government often emphasizes that those in ITE and polytechnics also have a bright future in front of them, but how many of them truly makes it to the top as compared to those in universities? Therefore, there is always the mindset in us that whatever we do, we must start from young and to be recognized as good, we must be better than our peers. This intense competition in everything that we do gives us great stress and children themselves, are not spared from it either. In the past, most of worries that children have may be who wins the game that they are playing or who has prettier dresses, but now it has become, who received the highest marks in the test, who bought the newest playstation game? As society changes, we change too. Our mindset changes, our worries change and even things that make us happy also change. They have more worries and the things that make them happy are harder to attain.
However, despite being much more unhappier than children of the past due to things like stress, loneliness and worries. I believe that children are still happier then adults. While children have school, adults have work. While children may be scolded for things that they did wrongly, adults may have to face dire consequences for he wrings that they did, for example, being fired from work. Adults undertake a much heavier responsibility than children, As such, many of the adults today still wish to become children once again. A child's life today may be worse off than a child's life in the past, but it is not the worst in a person's lifetime.
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