All World
Gayatri Pariwar

What is home? “My favorite definition is “a safe place,” a place where one is free from attack, a place where one experiences secure relationships and warmth. It’s a place where people share and understand each other. Its relationships are nurturing. The people in it do not need to be perfect; instead, they need to be honest, loving, supportive, recognizing a common humanity that makes all of us vulnerable.” – Says Gladys M. Hunt

In fact, a healthy, happy and harmonious home environment begins with the marital love between husband and wife and their commitment to each other. This relationship of caring and sharing communicates perfect love to their children. However, such a relationship does not naturally emerge. People are not born as good spouses (husband or wife). So they have to mold themselves that way only through hard work, self-sacrifice, patience, and service of each other and other family members.

When a husband and wife have disharmony at any level – physical, mental or emotional plane - it creates a gap in their relationship. This difference or the weakness tends to produce ill- consequences extending to the children in the home. Children are very sensitive and delicate. They get easily affected by any situation - whether good or bad. The behavior of their parents also affects them deeply. Their improper behavior and quarrelsome nature may even threaten the childhood of their little ones, which gets lost in this detrimental environment. The antipathy and discord of the parents give rise to feelings of insecurity and fear in children. This leads to lack of confidence and even weakens their educational proficiency. A childhood devoid of love of their parents moves towards bad company and then it becomes difficult to bring it back from there.

The more the parents have harmony in the marriage and natural love for each other, the more they satiate their child’s senses with the confidence of a nurturing world. The desire for love is more in childhood. The child is attracted more towards one who gives him love and affection. Kids of those families are more natural, balanced and courteous, where the atmosphere is happy and full of love and affection. The physical, mental and emotional development of children brought up in such an environment occurs rapidly. They are good in studies, interested in sports and behave well with others. The child’s personality begins to develop in such a healthy environment. Learning the affectionate, sophisticated and courteous behavior from their parents, even they begin to behave in the same way as they grow up. The little ones are most adversely affected by the rude behaviour of parents, their daily fights, arguments, indisposition and antipathy. They have their own problems. They want to know about their study and various other things related to their daily life. They have immense inquisitiveness and it should not be suppressed. However, the mutual differences of the parents are so much that they do not even talk to each other properly. In this tensed state of mind who would attempt to resolve the curiosity of the child? Who will answer their questions and solve their problems? In this situation, children cannot express their feelings. They do not say anything as they fear of being beaten up or scolded. Thus, they remain silent and eventually, become prone to frustrations.

The derogatory behavior of the parents embroils the children into perplexity. Sometimes, the ill consequences of their fights are borne by their innocent children. They get beating without any reason and this makes them scared and insecure. In such an atmosphere, they begin to feel suffocated and want to get away from this tense atmosphere. Various surveys show that many of the children run away from their homes only because of the discord between the parents and they either fall into bad company or become victims of criminal elements.

Such a touching incident occurred in a school of Salt Lake region of Calcutta. One of the students of the school expressed her pain in an essay titled, ‘My family’. In this essay, she wrote- ‘My father is really wicked. He always teases my mother. When he gets very angry, he throws whatever comes in his hand to beat my mother. Whenever he beats her, I get scared and crouch into the corner of the room. At night, my mother holds me and cries, even I cry with her. When my father sees us crying, he curses us even more. No one understands our pain, we weep and share our pain with each other’. She even wrote that when she will grow up she will take her mother far away from her father and will never let him know about their location.

The pain of small children could move even the heartless people, yet the psychologically sick parents remain unconcerned and apathetic. There is a similar incident in which a 9th class student of a metropolitan city left her home because of the fights of her parents. This 14 year old kid went to live in an orphanage. She took this step because at her house, her parents fought every day for some reason or the other. When the quarrel intensified, they started hitting each other and even her. She said that since childhood she had only seen her parents quarrelling and had never seen them talking lovingly. She told that she was very depressed and will never return back.

Numerous such incidents are revealing the mentality of the parents of today. Familial disharmony is distorting the personality of the children, their thoughts are becoming destructive, their hopes are shattering and their minds are getting overshadowed by insecurity and fear. This sort of behaviour of the parents is giving rise to violent nature even in children. Children learn from the adults and begin to behave in the same way as the elders do. So, they themselves get involved in fights, causing great commotion. They either begin considering themselves responsible for every wrong thing or develop the habit of putting the blame on others.

A research was conducted at the Wisconsin Medical University to study the behaviour of children and their parents. It revealed that tension, depression and inferiority complex could be clearly seen in the nature of the children who have grown up in unstable families. According to one study, the rudeness in the conversation of parents may be understood even by a ten-month old baby. It further showed that healthy development of children may be impeded by many reasons including the dejection of their parents, their mutual discord and humiliating behaviour. Due to this, the children lag behind in studies, their memory weakens and they cannot concentrate on anything for long, while their ability to learn also decreases. This adversely affects their talents and ultimately, they become frustrated.

Parents should certainly be careful to nurture the innocence of the little guest, whom they have brought into this world. They should ensure that his flower-like childhood is nurtured and protected. Children are innocent and pure and therefore, they are considered as the gift of God. They should nurture and not hurt their delicate sentiments so that on growing up they could become sensitive human beings and feel the joy and pain of others. They should infuse noble thoughts and ideals in their children, so that they may lead a worthwhile and fulfilling life.