There was a time when our parents’ words were like laws to us, and we knew better than to question them. Back then, respect was rooted in silence, obedience, and the ever present fear of the consequences of our actions. A raised eyebrow or a firm tone was enough to keep most of us in line because we understand them better than every other person.
Now in our present time, parenting has taken a sharp turn now, some children now have the courage to talk back at their parents and elderly ones while correcting them, they now express their emotions without fear of any consequence, and even negotiate the rules given to them in the household. What changed? What actually went wrong? Is this evolution a sign of progress, or have we sacrificed discipline on the altar of emotional intelligence?
Personally, I'd say that there are various factors in which all these could have happened and one of them is the advancement of technology. Though, the invention of technology has made a positive impact in individual's lives and the society at large but then, the way the children of nowadays abuse the privilege given to them is beyond control especially the Gen-Z generation, talking about children born in the year 2001 upwards till this moment.
In those days , i could remember so well that there was a time that we didn't have a television in our room an we stayed in a room apartment and so, we had neighbours who had T. V set. Due to the high level of discipline that we had, we dare not sneak into any of our neighbours rooms to watch the television despite our young ages then. We had the fear of our parents in those days to the extent that whenever we are playing at the backyard and I hear my dad's voice while coming back from his workplace, I stop playing immediately and I compose myself and act as if nothing was wrong.
Also, while we were little, we dare not collect any thing from any body whether the person is an elder or a younger person because we were trained not to collect gifts and if the gifts were forced on us then, we will report immediately to our parents and show them the gifts that was given to us and if they weren't around, we'd keep the gift until their arriva.
Furthermore, in those days, whenever we have an assignment from school, we dare not eat lunch until we finish the assignments and that's how it has been from the inception. At first, we thought all these were punishments. We never knew that they were training us for the future and in order to distinguish what is right from what is wrong.
In our present days, the economy has also contributed to the downfall of Parenting as parents no longer have the time to inculcate discipline and morals into their children. For instance, an office man who leaves home around 5:30am to works and gets back around 7pm in the night would have been too tired to look over his children especially when they're grown because he thinks they should be able to differentiate what is right from what is wrong. Also, that same man got married to a career oriented woman that also goes to work as early as possible and comes back around 5pm. Before the woman would have time to impart the kids with morals and discipline, she'd need to freshen herself and also think of making dinner for the family and by this, the couple only have limited times with their kids and there's no two ways about it; "If the child does not learn from his parents, he will definitely learn from other places." And whatever he learns, he will surely think that he's right.
Also, training has now become vice versa as parents nowadays listen more to their children instead of the children to listen to their parents and some parents do that because they don't want their children to go through harsh upbringing like they'll say, because the parents believe that they went through harsh times while growing up, just because their parents inculcated discipline into them.
Now, parenting has turned from Obedience in those days to Opinions nowadays because the fear isn't in the children again as some children see their parents as a garbage where they can trash all kinds of words while the parent corrects them without a sign of seriousness.