It's an occupational hazard..

Ask yourself, if and when you have children:

Why do you send them to educational institutions? Whether it is school, tuition, ballet lessons, piano lessons,.. why?
Is it so that your child's time is occupied whilst you slave away at your workplace?
Is it so that you may boast that you can afford to send your child to such places?
Is it to boast that your child attends such places?
Is it so that your child learns?

Ask then, what do you expect your child to learn?
2+2=4
Humans have 10 toes
How to remain en point
How to play Mozart's finest pieces
How to write the most beautiful and most endearing sonnets

How about manners? Where does you child learn that?
Where does your child learn to have respectable character?
Where does your child learn what is considered respectable character?
Where does your child learn to assume responsibility?
Humility, grace, founded Morales?
Where does she learn that?
Do you want her to learn that at all?
Do you, as a parent, raise your child well enough so that when they are out in the world, no one else has to give your child such lessons?
... to say please and thank you
... to shut their mouths when they have nothing good to say
... to speak up when they have reason and justifications
... to admire good character, rather than material possessions
... to respect, but not blindly obey
... to understand, and to convey understanding

We cannot do this alone. It takes an entire society to raise just one child. The society shapes that child as she grows. What society, you ask? Well, it is whatever society you place her in. It is the words you utter at home, it is the rules you impose upon her, it is in the excuses you make for her, it is in the places that you send her.

Her world, is as big or as small as you make it. You are the parent. You have the most control over what she is exposed to. You are her first hero. To her, you can do no wrong. She is the child, incapable yet of fair judgement. What she sees in you is all she can conceive as what is right and what should be. You are her protector, her saviour..and should you teach her that she is invincible behind your protective shield, she will always cower behind it. Then when will she learn to fight her own battles? When will she learn to suffer and heal from her own wounds? When she is old enough? When will that be?


There are parental roles that educators cannot fulfil; as is vice versa. In an ideal world, everybody understands that. But we live in anything but an ideal world..and if there is a lesson to be learnt here, perhaps the first will be that bravery doesn't always mean to stand up and fight.