Escaping Generational Helplessness
Exploring society's capacity to go forward by looking back
Introduction
I received a lot of unsolicited career advice growing up. People, often professionals including teachers, who thought they had seen exact qualities in me that clearly indicated what would be my most fulfilling path. They said these things out of genuine interest and from a truckload of experience. They seemed rather certain, at least showing as much conviction as one could about an essentially uncertain event. One of these was actually a prophet. If one lined those suggestions side-by-side, they could not possibly be reconciled. But most importantly, as I furthered down my actual path, it became clear how insufficient they were. Though these experiences seem very personal, they are a reflection of a systematic condition that influences a society’s capacity for continuous advancement.
A Notion of Parenting
It is a general experience that life makes more sense to people as they grow older. This blog post that remarks on the issue of kids asking lots of questions begins with: “Some studies show 4-year-olds ask as many as 200 to 300 questions a day. Warren Berger, author of A More Beautiful Question, says kids ask an average of 40,000 questions between the ages of 2 and 5.” Kids are not just curious, they are ignorant. Parents, on the other hand, are often impelled to teach new things to their children. But one would be mistaken to think that all those efforts go into teaching them the things they really need to know. Parenting is hard, and it is a particularly difficult task to mostly introduce one’s offspring to the right things even if one really wanted to. But we can productively compare perspectives to parenting based on their effects on the overall development of the child. Parenting should be considered, henceforth in this writing, as the sum of the instructions and constructions that the child is exposed to, from their environment.
The Child’s Helplessness
Children are hopelessly helpless. Thinking about it, it bothers me so much how one can sleep at night knowing that their child is growing up, today, ignorant of things they need to be a capable adult or a more productive child. But there is an obvious problem with being obsessed with this thought: apart from the fact that people are busy with their own challenges (some of which followed on from their childhood) one risks coming off as trying to impose their will on the impressionable minds. Young people have their own idea of what they need to know (and they generally find intrusion repulsive). Meanwhile, given that their understanding of things is necessarily incomplete, it is tempting to write them off as mere juvenile tendencies, as is prevalent in some cultures. But honest parents would admit their limited knowledge of what is right, in the grand program of parenting. It, thus, seems like the child’s plight is the daily experience of an insoluble dilemma. However, there is an intentional, yet unassuming perspective that willing parents can adopt.
Maximum Options Perspective
The child’s developmental dilemma can be imagined as a two-sided coin.
Contrary to the delusional sense of wisdom induced by personal experience, no more useful knowledge of a person and their capabilities can come from anywhere else than those that can be extracted from the individual’s own personality. (side a:) Unfortunately, children are not well-positioned to usefully access their ‘personal information.’ One of the primary goals of parenting should be to aid the process of this type of self-learning. It should be noted, though, that the younger the subject is, the less helpful it is to employ a static mentality to their identity. Thus, it is instrumental to assume the perspective that one’s job is to help generate the optimal number of useful options, and then secondarily, help provide the means to access them.
The options-generator perspective in parenting is a single switch that powers the whole building.
One cannot have a functional picture of their place in the world if they have a limited understanding of what kinds of spots are available. (side b:) Children typically do not have a solid understanding of how the world works, and commonly, they have limited knowledge of the actual roles adults play in society. A parent as an options generator should consciously help children understand the decision tree ahead of them. In Nigeria, there isn’t enough focus on career education in schools. Many students go through secondary school without having a one-on-one discussion with a professional about their career options. Career days should not be sparsely designated big days played out through large-hall forums that are only not boring to the current speaker. There should be career classes as a part of the weekly timetable.
Important knowledge
The options generator perspective also points us to what we might consider as the most important objectives of education. Children would be more capable choosers if they are literate, able to study by themselves, manage complex decision demands, make use of resources in unfamiliar circumstances, and collaborate with others. These should be the goals of primary education, taking priority over subject-specific learning. Also, skills should not be taught based on their relevance today, but according to their place in some vision of the future.
Commonsense Advice
The problem with the kind of career advice I was exposed to as a Nigerian child is that, though well-intentioned, they relied too much on commonsense. Some of their key deficiencies are discussed below:
- They were largely based on old knowledge that was outdated, in some way or another. Parents should keep in mind that even the best revelations from years ago may not be very useful today without proper recontextualization.
- Even for a fairly knowledgeable person, the things we know from everyday experience cannot replace well-researched data. It is helpful to think of oneself as a way to get answers rather than the one to provide them.
- Merely observing a child is not a final report of their abilities. It’s simply an invitation to find out what they actually are. There are always useful bits to learn from a thoroughly derived psychological profile.
Of a truth, I sometimes got the impression that mine was a particularly elusive case. Perhaps the most qualified of my advisors did not give me any specific advice at all. He simply asked me, much to my disappointment and amazement and weird excitement, to follow my inclinations, at a time when things couldn’t be more uncertain. But even such a situation would benefit greatly from options-generation.
Social Parenting
Although we addressed the child’s predicament and the parents’ responsibilities as individual challenges, they really manifest as social problems. Thus, the helplessness of a child points to the helplessness of a younger generation. And when I said:
“It bothers me so much how one can sleep at night knowing that their child is growing up, today, ignorant of things they need to be a capable adult or a more productive child,”
I really meant:
“It bothers me so much how we can sleep at night knowing that the ones upon whose shoulders lie the responsibility of carrying the future are growing up, today, ignorant of things they need to be capable adults or more productive children.”
Thus, not the ‘parenting’ perspectives discussed should be seen to be of a social flavor, involving the contribution of every responsible citizen. It is impossible to parent effectively, in this way, without having some common idea of what we must become as a people.
Conclusion
One of the clear ways by which we can be assured of the progress of our society is to ensure the education of our children. Yet, a developing nation such as Nigeria does not seem to take this seriously enough. Many of the socioeconomic challenges faced by adult populations are direct consequences of their childhood circumstances. And some of the failures of society can be seen as every generation’s failed attempt at escaping its predicament. Perhaps, instead of perpetuating this fate of unfulfillment, we should realize that no generation can help itself. Thus, only if we dedicate a significant portion of our resources to helping those to whom tomorrow belong, we will never evade the tragic cycle of generational helplessness.
