Generation GAP!!

God, I am already feeling OLD, and I am just 21!!!

Don’t be shocked by this line, if you have a sibling or know a ‘kid’, around you, who is say between 9-12 years of age, you would know what I am talking about! Kids today (at least that is what I still would like to call them) are growing up much faster than their peers, or even we did, a couple of years ago.

Right from freaking out at movie halls and malls in the 7th Std, to going to Birthday Parties at Pizza Huts in 3rd Std, kids today are in an even bigger and faster hurry to become adults. Imagine this; a 5th grader carries a sleeker cell phone than my mom to school! and a 8th grader comes to school after streaking her hair!!!

Being a witness to my 11 year old cousin’s growing up years is becoming more of a ‘Oh-My-God-What-has-this-come-to’ than a ‘we-were-like-this-only’!!! After all the pool parties, she has gone too (I have just been to one!!) and the sort of fashion trends and style icons her classmates follow, and idolise, more than be angry, I pity them! They have no childhood to speak of! They are obsessed with weight loss, know all the difference between mascara and eyeliners, and are this short of learning about the birds and bees!!!

Thankfully, my cousin is a li’l brat who is not that hard core into this crazy stuff, (although, I was the only one who saw Charlie and the Choclate factory, at her bday party, while the 'kids' preferred to discuss saif-bipasha liasion!!!) And they are all perfectly prepared to become those factory models – the sort, you know, with straight hair, a 15” waist, make-up even in the gym and wearing the same sort of clothes- the one some hi-fi gal wore at a page 3 party last night!! I mean give me a break, they are small young innocent minds that need not know that 52 kgs is the perfect weight when your height is 5’2, but who need to know that the world is made up of more species than just the human being, and that life doesn’t treat you differently, just because you happen to wear a certain brand of clothes or that it is certainly OK if you do not fit in with a certain crowd, and that your self respect is more important than being the most popular girl in class!!!

Yes, I know the immediate next reaction to this argument is, that it is the ill effect of the media…. But hey, even we grew up when there was the media, and we didn’t turn out that bad!! Yes, they are influenced, and media is not the best of teacher of moral values and anything remotely related, but people cannot sit at one place and blame a certain entity, for spoiling the future of the kids!! I guess it’s very important that the parents and guardians take it upon themselves to teach their kids, how to think!! Yes, this is what we are missing today, we teach them values, we expect them to follow it… rather than making them understand as to why a certain thing is important or what is the effect of a certain thing, and then there is also the fact that we as a society refuse to see beyond the superficial. It’s when we stop making comments and wasting so much of our time, discussing Abhi-Ash weddings, and Paris Hilton’s Jail Stints (aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!) as if our economic future depended on it, that we can actually ask our kids to take a different outlook towards the whole situation!

Maybe its easier said than done, and I am in certainly no mood or in a hurry to give a try to parenting (lest you ask: P) but a look at the kids around, and I get a feeling to write this! Especially, as a previous volunteer with kids, and the way I see 11yr olds going about their life, these days, I am scared she and kids like her, don’t turn out to be Paris or Britney or Posh Spice!!!