Don’t Complain – learn to get what you want in a subtle manner

I wish to concentrate on collective issues and not on personal matters. Young people are famous for believing they are entitled to something. I don’t know what it is that gives them this, but it may have something to do with the way they are brought up, and possibly parenting issues of this century. With an average household not having more than two children, parents seem to dote on their offspring who grow up spoilt, and worse, if one parent works overseas, they send money, thinking that it would compensate for the lack of love and affection.

Growing up in this environment, they are less able to fend for themselves, and have not been thrust into the wider world, at an earlier age, which many of their parents had to due to circumstances that were different.

Do not forget that in a generation our GNP per capita in US $ terms has grown tenfold since the 1977 opening up of the economy. No one remembers the queues for basic items then. It is a vastly different world that we live in today, with almost anything available, though at a price, which a whole new middle class seems to be able to afford.

They now grow up in a world of SMS dating, Internet and Mobile phones, none of which their parents were exposed to. This fast life almost gives them an arrogance that they are from a different era that permits them more freedoms than that afforded to their parents.

This results in wanting things that even their parents cannot reasonably without tremendous sacrifice give them, the latest craze being motorbikes as that is what draws the lasses. With the increase in duty adding another Rs 100K to the price of a new one, their requests must become reasonable and they must work for these basic needs and not expect to be handed them on a platter. What is hard earned in maintained, appreciated and used carefully and it is a generation that understands thrift that is needed once again, if we are to face some of the real pressures of life.

Growth brings in an added number of problems. We have more traffic congestion and deaths on the roads. We have more pollution of every sort. We have overcrowding and cheek by jowl existence and an urban shift from rural living. All these pressures add to short fuses, impatience and family disharmony amongst young people. So patience and subtlety are called for.