Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Nature vs Nurture

"As Confucius said, if you think in terms of a year, plant a seed, if you think in terms of 10 years, plant trees, If you think in terms of 100 years, educate the people"

Running a country is not an easy task, nor being a parent. You need the basic attitude, humour, aptitude, tolerance and foresight. A nation made up of interesting characters, hard to control ones too. Leaving a nation to nature, it would probably be able to survive on basic instincts. You catch a fish, plant a seed you would be able to feed yourself and live.


But for a nation to grow as a people, you need to nurture. There are nations which have taught their people to be clean, polite, socially responsible. It is hard to change old habits. But change it must.


Simple habits like washing your hands often, cover your mouth when you sneeze. Opening a door for others, standing in queues if required sound so innate yet it needed to be taught. Creating a religious tolerant society needs nurturing too , it does not happen overnight. What it amounts to is education. For change to come, we need to educate and it will take a while.


What's more with children. Bad habits, lack of self esteem, rude, poor analytical and social skills are but some of problems children face. We cannot and must not give up, because they are our children. Who will nurture them if not us.


My dearest wish is that my boy will turn out to be a kind, generous, responsible, compassionate man. That would have been my gift to society. We all strive to reach a stage of enlightenment, but as parents we ourselves are not perfect with faults aplenty. What kind of example do we set then?

Confessing my inadequacies will allow my boy to understand there is a right path and that I am only human. Yet we continue to strive. Perhaps it will take yet another generation before we get there.

8 comments:

  1. good post! love your new blog design.

    It seems that in this day and age, we have a multitude of choices for education and yet our basic social culture (which is one thing that defines us as human beings from animals) is falling behind. Everything is acceptable and we are forgetting that not everything should be accepted. 'just because you can, doesn't mean you should'

    opening our children's eyes to see what is appropriate and what is not is all we can do as parents

    Yes, it takes a turn around in our society to see that basic manners needs to be enforced. this includes, respecting your fellow man's space, being compassionate, listening to each other, saying thank you, etc. I don't know about you but I prefer to be regarded as a human being, not an animal that can't be taught proper human behavior.

    We do our best as parents, to raise our children to be polite. that's about all we can do. Start with one and let the multitude follow after.

    I'm sure your young man has learned that already. No worries

    thank you for your post
    take care
    Hope

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  2. Manners are not easy to find in this day and age. I totally agree, we need to teach this to our children!

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  3. Gaia, lovely layout. It so soothes the eyes! I endorse everything you have written here. And I also wish to add that if women ran the country, we would definitely do a wonderful job.
    As for manners and etiquette, it is something very basic and vital. But unfortunately the present generation does not seem to mind it or they just overlook those details. It takes consistency and perseverance to instill values into our children. All said and done, "The parent's life is the child's copybook." Unconsciously children pick up their parent's traits. Knowing you through this blog, I'm sure your boy will be an apt individual who will reflect your being :)

    Joy and Love.

    Have a great weekend :)

    ~ Susan

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  4. Oh wow, has society ever changed. The lack of respect especially in our young people unbelievable. Good post. Thanks for sharing.

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  5. It all begins in the homes. That is where we learn how to care for others and also our self. I'm sure your Son is learning from your example and will be a joy to the world.

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  6. Like the quilt background.

    That is Life, life is like that ...

    For those of us with kids, we have but only our duty to see to. WE do what we must because we have experiences in our lives as children of our parents.

    Kids are smart cookies, they don't expect us to be perfect. But they do accuse me of expecting them to be perfect. While we all know that's impossible, I tell my son , of course I do because that's the only way to get him to work to his full potential.
    ... and the argument goes on.. and life in general goes on..
    :)

    In the end it will be worth it.

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  7. Left a comment - not sure you got it :(

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  8. Muack, muack muack

    Thank you for your kind words and comments.
    Love you all. Blessings and have a great week ahead. Back to work tomorrow! Times flies.

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Love to hear from you! Blessings always

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