Parenting the ‘Insta’ generation

Being the mother of a teenage daughter, I sometimes wonder if it is the same living thing I had once swooned over for being a “bundle of joy”. I wonder if she is the one I have been so diligently bringing up all this while. I cannot help but pity myself for being part of a sandwiched generation (most people of my age would agree) — between scoldings and beatings by parents when young and being frowned upon by our children now.

I would admit that I am constantly wondering if my style of parenting is right or wrong. I am constantly balancing between what feels like a helicopter parent and an absentee parent. A piece of news from earlier this month about a 20 year old youth heavily addicted to his mobile phone hacking his parents and sister to death in Jaipur, shook my conscience.

What could have possibly made him go to that length? Mental health issues among the youth seem like an epidemic today. The reality has been well captured in the movie Kho Gae Hum Kahan, where three best friends in their twenties struggle to take charge of their lives full of romance, ambition and heartbreaks, alongside the addictive pull of social media.

This made me realise how exactly our children’s lives revolve so much around a screen, predominantly of their phone and laptop. In one movie, a character shouts at his mother to shut the door of his bedroom, after he had had a bad day at the gym. The mother, who tries to calm down her son on seeing him troubled, is left looking helpless, as she promptly closes the door.

Today’s youngsters closely guard their private space. This generation does not realise that by living in a cocoon, they are only creating a deep wedge between themselves and their parents who are their best well wishers. One cannot but fully agree with actor Ratna Pathak Shah, who in a recent interview has said that she is happy not to be part of today’s generation, as they have very little parental guidance.

She calls them a generation “buffeted constantly with information without assimilation which has no value” and unfortunately, a generation that cannot imagine that they too will be thwarted one day. Earlier, while one would look up to elder siblings, parents, grandparents or teachers for advice, the present day children seek information on social media platforms such as YouTube and Google.

This sea of information comes with no guarantee of being correct and suitable for consumption. YouTube influencers are their new role models so much so that their personal lives seem to be all over the place with “instagramm able” pictures publicly put out for all to see. Their act of taking revenge through hacking into someone else’s account, their style of “blocking” people with whom they do not get along well, their style of “ghosting” people, going for “situationships”, stalking of exes, their mad rush to increase their number of followers… all this seems too scary to me personally.

I wonder if children can see where this overdependence on screen and lack of guidance are taking them in future. Parents like me are also to blame. With courage to have only a child or two, fearing caregiving responsibilities in the absence of a foolproof support structure while juggling a career, we too are at fault.

To make up, one ends up fulfilling most of the wants of the child who never learns to feel gratitude for the things received, being aware that the next supply is only a call away. Growing up alone in nuclear families and then leaving home right after Class 12 for further studies has become a norm that unfortunately throws unforeseen challenges at the child who has not learnt the basic life skills of sharing with, and caring for, siblings.

The child remains emotionally unsatiated and socially gullible and vulnerable. Though I, as a parent, do respect the need of a child for space, I also fear the repercussions of letting them be! pooja.kashyap78@gmail.com COMMents SHARE Copy link Email Facebook Twitter Telegram LinkedIn WhatsApp Reddit.