Fear is the key.

Last week I heard from one of my friends, a comment from someone at a party that he/she would not like disciplining children. I do not understand this concept of not disciplining children and letting them learn things on their own. When we are at home, we have some liberties, and freedom. But when we go out we want to present our best face to others. We try to be nice, wear presentable clothes and be on the best possible behavior. When we tell others that we do not like to discipline our children, what are we conveying? We may not mean it, but are we trying to say, that we care only about ourselves and not others?

We can give our children the freedom to experience, understand and develop on their own, but some parental oversight is warranted. There are certain things in life which are to be taught. If there were no rules, regulations and laws in Society, imagine how difficult it would have been for us to live our lives the way we are used to. Similarly, I think there ought to be rules and regulations in our personal lives to help us in our daily life and also to achieve our future goals.

So what makes us follow these rules? - The fear that there are consequences for our actions or inaction. Without this fear it is very difficult for us as a Society to enforce discipline. I guess this fear stems from the basic nature of life, without which any species cannot survive for long. I believe children to some extent are a reflection of how we live our lives.

Take the case of Nadya Suleman, who was in the news recently for her octuplets. She is young, unwed, unemployed Mother of Six children, living with her parents. How did she decide to have 8 more on top of the 6 she already had? What would have prompted her to take the decision to bring more children into this world, when she was not able to support herself and her children on her own. Would she have done this if there were known consequences for her actions? In US you have freedom to do what you want to do. But, what about personal responsibility? Isn't she being irresponsible to do what she did? Yes, I believe so. No one is trying here to tell her how to live her life. That is her life anyway. But we do tell people that they should not be cheating, stealing, killing and so on... How come there are no rules about Responsibility? Where is her personal accountability in all this? Whatever happened to the Doctor who performed these procedures for all her 14 children and his responsibility, morals and ethics? Something is wrong somewhere, which allowed all these players in this sordid drama, to do what they did. This is a tragedy for everyone involved in this episode, especially her aging parents and all 14 children.

Sometimes we need to have fear without which we lose our bearings. Being fearless is good but not all the time. What is happening all around us with people losing their 401Ks and all other savings, is because of the fearless greed that engulfed us. Many people believed that the housing boom will last forever, just like in the last tech boom many thought with "irrational exuberance", that we entered ‘a new economy’.

I am not advocating being fearful irrationally, but I believe we could have avoided much of this pain, if as Individuals and as a society, we were fearful of the consequences of our actions. It is no longer a virtue to be fearless!