Guest
A child’s company outside home has a lot of bearing on the child’s character. This is true even where parents set good example, themselves. The parents, these days may not necessarily have much control on their children’s company and activity away from home, e.g. at their place of work or study.
Response
True. But not forgetting the wider family. Things are really stacked against decent people.
The solution, perhaps, lies in catching them young. The parents must carefully form their own family circle and regulate discipline at home. This is, of course, easier said than done, particularly when you are living in a foreign country, with little control over job selection, neighbourhood and culture. This becomes doubly hard where your child is at a school where he or she has no other pupil sharing their culture or background.
It becomes, therefore, all the more important to try and mould the character of your child at an early stage. In a multi-cultural society, whilst integration is important, a good understanding of one’s faith is equally important. Sikhi, fortunately is a tried and tested doctrine, in that, not only is the child is able to integrate but is also able to uphold the values of his/her values. This is also true in foreign countries these days as there is a good presence of Punjabi Diaspora. However, this was not easy, for example, in the UK in the sixties and seventies. Discrimination was quite rife, at the time, in the UK. There were hardly any places of worship or social organisations. Discrimination in job opportunities was strong. People had to work in positions well below their qualifications, and many worked in factories and building sites. Some lucky ones had to travel miles to the jobs of their choice. Life in the UK was hard in the in the 1950’s, 1960’s and 1970’s.
Punjabi’s are very adaptable people, whether they live in India outside Punjab or are settled in foreign lands, such as the UK, the USA, Canada, Australia and several European countries.
11 September 2016
To be continued