Making Of Superman Or Superbrat?

MAKING OF SUPERMAN OR SUPERBRAT

Crime by juveniles is on the increase in all parts of the world. Children are losing innocence at very early age. The age for onset of teens has reduced from thirteen to ten or perhaps nine. Children are now involved in all forms of crimes from pick pocketing, theft, burglaries, kidnapping to even murder.

MAKING OF SUPERMAN OR SUPERBRAT

If children of the Western world can shoot in schools, our children are not far behind. In the recent past a class 1X student shot dead his classmate with stolen pistol of his uncle in the school premises of NCR. Last month a 15 year old boy allegedly raped his neighbour in Kanjawala. An 8 year old boy slit his 6 year old neighbour’s throat in Govindpuri . According to a recent report crime by juveniles across the country has increased by around 9 percent over the past year.

What is at the root of increasing juvenile crime? Is it widening gap between rich and poor pushing children from the poor families into the world of crime? It may be partially true but children from well off families are no better, they also commit all sorts of crimes to maintain their lavish life style.

How much upbringing of a child adds to his criminal tendencies? Do the parents nowadays have time to watch the activities of their loved ones? Today children have become more individualistic. How much control parents can exercise on them? The children of the West can call the Police over phone for ‘mistreatment’ by a parent. Our children are ready to follow suit. Emotional blackmailing by the children is a common thing. The environment has changed a lot. Children of the modern age are overexposed to sex, family abuse, violence and crime etc at very early age through TV, cinema, and internet.

Then there are sharks in the society who look for delinquent child as a soft target. An unhappy child easily falls prey to their nefarious designs and joins their gang which is engaged in illegal activities.

What do the children learn in schools? Is moral science still a part of the school curriculum? Education has reduced to commercial activity in the so called temples of learning. They teach children Art of Earning instead of Art of Learning.

Besides increase in juvenile crime, there has been spate of suicides by children as young as 9/10 year of age. We have made our children’s lives very competitive. Parents want to fulfil their ambitions through their children. Their children should fulfil their dreams and achieve for them what they themselves could not achieve in their life. Why can’t we allow the children to grow normally on his/her own pace?

George Bernard Shaw in his play ‘Man and Superman’ and a German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche in his literary work ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra’ visualised emancipation of human race. In their works man is destined to evolve as a superman. What about New age Children-are they emerging as supermen or super brats ?