The three blind mice and the rat race- Are you in it?

Had I known that growing up into the future would just mean racing, I would have probably practiced more on my sprinting- abilities and grown up to be an ace racer .  But then the leap towards this kind of present  demands more than what an Olympic sprinter can achieve. It tracks down to the  rat-race mindset, which blindly follows what the other racer does. So, begins  my journey with the three blind mice.
 

They outrun the chase like the rats with no face

As a mother of two kids, with one at KG and the other primary level, I  felt the pulse of the stifling competition, that would even challenge toddlers to scale mountains.  Right from school selection,       academic  goals, extra –curricular activities to futuristic career-paths,  it is the rat-race and it starts early. Blinded by  academic obsession, competition and power , the race sucks in the spirit to excel individually  and brings out the SHADOW of a herd with a single aim:- to beat the arse out of a rival than reaching the peak of performance.

What do the three blind mice say?

• Academic obsession:  I saw the flip-side of  ganging up with mothers’  who had kids of my children’s age. Apart from the usual chit-chat over chores and troublesome maids, the conversation always veered towards the children’s academic progress.

 Where we as the beacons of light and largesse of patience for our little ones, should allow them ample space to blossom in time, we become even more rigorous in pushing our kids to the far-limits of competition. Here, one mother would set the benchmark for other mothers to follow. She would declare that her kid(s) are the performers, par-excellence and eventually share her facebook details , just to show the evidence of performance to all the awestruck and disbelieving mothers.

(Facebook might have  its share of woes, but  for mothers with a singular objective for tooting their kids’ trumpets, it serves the purpose well, as a public platform). It is received with awe no less and jealousy even more  (after all the whole purpose of making it public, is to create the impression of “owner’s pride, neighbour’s envy”).

 Combined with jealousy, frustration and well, the academic rigour, the other mothers are entailed to join the rat race and buckle up their wards by comparing them with the top-graders and later lamenting over the lacunae left by their “ever”-playful kids with lesser academic zest.  The kids are absorbed into the rats’ clan and remain a mould with no shape given to their individual potential.(So, mark it parents, play-zones can become the territory of insidious infiltration by academic-struck parents, hatching plans of increasing the membership of the rat race)

• Competition: Whether you are capable or not, you have to compete. That’s the underlying principle of the rat race. You have to push, shove, jostle in the hustle and bustle. It is part of the game, except that its not played for the sporting spirit.  You won’t be surprised to find blood-thirsty mothers(blood , here refers to the lifeline of the overworked mothers pulsating with t ambition) reining in their children with a whip and a bridle to set them on track and to keep them running. Mothers become the devil’s advocate and propagate the policy of “All is fair in love , war and the rat-race”. Integrity lost, principles compromised  and the individual overshadowed, competition unleashes the herd and takes them to the far-reaching goal of the common.

The roads less travelled are lost in these tracks. Creative ideas die in the stampede and each child like it or not, settles for what every rat cherishes – a piece of cheese even if its found in the gutters of the strip-tease(after all, what is left once you reach the goal, the bare truth that everything is over and there is nothing more). Even as your kids give their rivals the brush-ho, there will be a time when they will not have any one to counter, none to beat. Then you feel the emptiness, the vaccum and the drain-out in your child. Would not it have been wiser, if they had been taught to compete with their own self, extend their potential to self-set benchmarks of excellence, than falling prey to the herd-mentality and suffering?)

 

• Power & clichés : Who doesn’t love to wield power? Who doesn’t like respect? Who does not want have a following? But the most common misconception about power is that we associate it with status and clichés. The generally followed principle is “I shall covet what thou hath”, so that you are hoarded with what the world has, and feel bestowed with power.  Be it joining a recreational activity or enrolling for an extra-curricular programme, there is a stereotype, which all mothers want to follow and which they think provides them the safety-net.  That how it is with cliché – it provides security and with security comes power, assumedly.

Should we blindly copy? Are we just the copy-cats(rats?) of the animal kingdom?

That’s how the rat-race attracts the mass. It thrives on the mindset to “imitate” and as we force our children to reach to the level of another (which according to us, is the pinnacle of excellence), we are unconsciously creating Xerox copies. Well, monkeys are better at imitating and parrots even better at mimicry, so which species  of the animal kingdom we hail from, by joining the rat-race?

But the precedent set by harried mothers is oblivious to these facts, they want their children just to outpace  the others in the herd. Seldom would they have thought, that such herds go berserk without a leader.

Should not we set examples for our children by inspiring them, leading them to take the lead in the direction of where their potential lies, excel and be the leaders of tomorrow?

No, for us, it is a matter of status to establish our prowess over the other boastful mom and shut her mouth out.  In the process, we shut out our kids, from the windows of opportunities, they fail to see in the rat-race rampage!

 The collective spirit but not the herd mentality – Quit the rat-race

The collective spirit but not the herd mentality – Quit the rat-race!
Where, we as a nation can rise to Olympian heights with the collective spirit, the herd mentality throws the spanner in the works. Where the former works on cohesion, the latter only operates on a dysfunctional, clichéd and constricted mindspace.  The spirit and mind should conjoin for progress and that’s the secret for success. If either one gets bound by the norms, statuses and power of the herd, it only creates a destructive force, one which simmers with an individual’s unused potential.
By thrusting our kids into the rat-race, we are only crushing their free spirit to explore, experiment , discover and learn. Well, much as we would like to blame it on the system are we not part of the same and contributing in every possible way to make it the way it is?

It does not need a revolution or Renaissance to create the change we seek.  It needs a beginning- an ignition to kickstart the process towards progressive thinking. Let us not get dragged into the rat-race, rather let us sprint towards new horizons to lead.

As the seeds of the future, our children deserve their individual space to turn into a full-bloom.  They seek inspiration from us to embark on the journey of discovery, which will not only nourish their soul but also sharpen their intellect and broaden their horizons of learning. And yes, in the process, they will blaze a trail and create an aura that  will be unique, distinct and very much the child you have loved and be ever proud of!