By Abdifatah Sheikh Ibrahim
We all develop passion for the things we like to do, at an early stage in life. We garner and come up with marvelous ways of sharing intimate love and enthusiasm with that passion. We all cherish it and harness it to be the beacon of the light that leads the way into the grey and far bleak future. Our minds and hearts are beautifully coordinative in accommodating any thought and plan appealing to it in contrast to the rebellious behavior they manifest and emanate when distorted choices they collectively render noxious, mind-numbing and inspiring are imposed upon them. 
Our thoughts and souls seem to be at ease in the environment of our passion. They thrive and flourish under it infinitely as the aura it exudes feed our souls and the interest we develop for it gets irreversibly bound to its very promising fabric. For many of us, at some point, decisions of third party (Parents or anyone else) parachutes into those very critical moments, change the rules of the game and dismantle the sweet union we and our passion have been joyously sharing.
Let it be known that this article is not one that I blatantly criticize parents and put them under harsh scrutiny but rather a mere constructive one that unravels their share of the jigsaw puzzle which foresee the gruesome failures and the demise of self-realization of many of us in academic world and in other walks of life and I will solely put highlight on the former.
I have been closely observing the educational sector of our community and the choices made by students for their desired field. I have come to the conclusion that in many cases, parents exert huge behind-the-scene influence on their children and shove their own personally calculated choices down their throat without having a single clue whether that is something of enormous interest for his already adolescent future and the deadly ramification such blind move could have on his entire life.
I have seen many individuals who study a certain field because their parents told them to and not that they chose it on their own volition and free will. Frustration and confusion is written on their faces with capital letters. Their personal progress is hampered by the abortion of their passion. Their emotions are clouded by extreme sadness and helplessness. Studying proves difficult and every time he/she is alerted the nearing of exams, his/ her heart goes to his/ her throat like it is popping out. He/she tries to work hard to prep thoroughly but sadly the number and letters get lost somewhere between the eyes and the pages. Suicidal thoughts cross their minds and they vainly distract them with already dying hopes. He or she sees failure looming towards him with its merciless negative impacts and gets engulfed by dreadful sorrows and worries. All of this just because their paths were unwillingly chosen for them on their behalf. Can you blame them?
One crucial but trivialized point is that Parents ( due to livelihood and circumstance in the society) see their dreams in their children. It is fantastically right if your parents wish to see you accomplish more throughout your life as far as the “parental caring and love” notion is concerned, but it is unwise for them to see their dreams in their offspring. This is deliciously complicated but let me put it in perspective. A lady in her late twenties was asked,” what is your dream?” and she replied with simplicity,” My dream is to give birth to president, and prime ministers.” One might argue this is her dream but the interesting truth is it is NOT. Being president and prime ministers may be the dream and passion of her offspring but not the other way around as long as the “personal dreams” is taken into account. This slight misconception paves the way for the blind disruption of the blessed wedlock between the individual and his passion, cast them into bottomless hole of hopelessness and eventually degrade their initial insatiable appetite for academic progress and reaching the pinnacle of their goals
Another point of equal importance that is worthy of especial consideration is that parents are competitive by nature and that they are in constant tooth and nail race with those who share the matrimonial-category with them. Whenever a daughter or boy of certain family joins a particular field deemed useful and promoting in the eyes of the public from financial point of view, other families who are in the same circle will likely force their children to do the same and demand them to meet their expectation willy-nilly, regardless of their ill-equipped status and capacity to fathom the concerned field.
I believe it is high time many parents reviewed their strategy towards their children’s future and ask themselves the question: Are you really building the future of your children or breaking it with your own hands???. What on earth would it take if we let our children study things that they believe have similar codes to their passion instead of throwing them in dilemma that could horribly make things go haywire for them??? We must not overlook the drastic consequence a little decision of ours may have on their wellbeing psychologically and socially and the gnarly ways the plans we personally devise on our own could stir up a hornet’s nest for them for the rest of their lives. Why push them to pick something that can make them end up in dead-end ?
I genuinely hold that any individual reserve the right to pursue that which is associated to his passion and not get influenced by skewed ideologies that leaves him /her in the odd position of visualizing College and University as pressure cooker which doesn’t even offer the least space to think out of the box. It is down to parents to show extra care when handling such issue which times with the crossroads of both emotion and self-examination of their offspring.
In conclusion, it is well-known fact that one deadly wrong move we make in the game of chess predicts our inevitable checkmate and in analogy, the future of our children is nothing short of that. A passion that will light the way for them and uplift them both mentally and academically and guide them to the epitome of success OR indifference that could land them in absolute misery and whisk away the little happy moments in their lives, nothing to say about catalogues of self-loathing thoughts and the recurring episodes of mental confusion relating achievement crisis that will adversely envelope them. You make the call.
Abdifatah Sheikh Ibrahim
Email: [email protected]
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