Letting Children Be Children
In so many parts of the world children are not yet permitted to be children. There are so many places where children are not protected, where they are beaten and abused, starved and worked to death, denied health care, denied education, denied any kind of opportunities to advance them into healthy adulthood.In a good many instances these situations are unfortunate byproducts of endemic poverty. In other,because the culture of the country enables the abuse of children. There are those countries who cater to tourists who enter the country for the express purpose of sexually abusing children. There are those countries whose caste system, even if it has been politically and legally banned, will not offer children educational opportunities, access to proper health care, adequate food an drinking water. And then there are those countries where children are seen as work animals whose clever little fingers can be trained to do work that clumsy adults cannot contrive to do.
Let's not forget countries whom civil discourse and social structure has never developed and where children are abducted to be used as slaves, or as fighters in a war cause whose purpose is beyond the child's understanding. In all these instances childhood is snatched away before it can even begin. That is, the kind of idyllic childhood possible for children fortunate enough to be born to enlightened parents in the developed world.
So when all the stars are aligned for a child, born to a loving family in a comfortable social situation in a country which takes the right of children to be protected from abuse seriously; to be allowed to mature as nature intended and yet still the adventure of normal childhood and gradual maturation is denied, we realize that something is terribly amiss. We are troubled. As well we should be.
Those parents who encourage children to embrace infant careers as actors or models prepare their children for a life with a fairly thin veneer of values. They seem more intent on using their children's natural physical attributes to reflect upon themselves, and to earn praise and enrich the family coffers than to offer their children the opportunity to enjoy the early years of discovery and fascination with the world on a relaxed and child-centred agenda.
Which is why the public will condemn a family for thrusting an eight-year-old child - however much the child seems to take naturally to the process, however precocious the child is in her inclinations and talents - into the public limelight. In the instance of Bindi Sue Irwin, taking her father's place in the public esteem of one who seems to be able to relate to animals without fear of the known propensities of wild animals to react violently in reaction to perceived danger.
This little girl's father died as a result of his hubris, his unbridled and much-celebrated casually-egotistical handling of wild animals when one such creature turned on him in fear and did what nature intended it to: protect itself. What guarantees can there possibly be that a similar occurrence mightn't await his child? A child of eight is easily manipulated, readily encouraged to behave in a manner inimical to her/his well being simply because children trust adults.
Bindi Irwin loves to sing and to dance - what little girl does not? Especially when such performances result in public admiration, even a kind of adulation? All little girls like to be noticed in a positive, admiring way; it's a universal dream of childhood. This little girl loves animals, and most children do. She has a knowledge of handling and being with animals that is extraordinary because she is her father's child and is able to emulate what she has seen him do. All of which make her extremely vulnerable.
Why her remaining parent and her grandparents will not recognize her need for protection at this too-young age for independent thought can only be attributed to the fact that they themselves hunger for attention, and can receive it through this child's performance. That they all miss their father, husband and son and feel great sorrow at his loss is normal. That they seek to comfort themselves by transforming a child into an infant facsimile of what they've lost is abnormal and a tragedy.
She deserves better. They could use a thorough spanking.
Labels: Particularities/Peculiarities
posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, January 10, 2007
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