Lilypie

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

The "Little Emperor" Syndrome

Recently, a video featuring two teenaged boys has gone viral. Online and physical media has picked up on the story and bloggers and netizens have slammed the two boys for what they did. Essentially, they refused to give up the nursing room in a library when a mother who needed to nurse her baby requested, and were even rude to the mother.
 
I really wonder, is it due to the progression of society or upbringing that kids are behaving in such ways nowadays? As I said before, nothing is secret anymore. Every little action you do, no matter how little, will be taped down and broadcasted to the whole world. I always find that unethical because it is one's own private affairs after all, is it really necessary to involve the whole world?
 
Human nature is such that they crave on "juicy" news, even if it did not happen to them. That is why when so and so quarrelled in public and they were unfortunately taped and uploaded, suddenly they found themselves in the middle of some sensational news. Is it really that necessary? What pleasure and satisfaction can one derive on seeing other people's private affairs?
 
In this case, the mother in question taped the two boys. The boys knew they were being taped, and even warned the mother from sending the tape to an online forum. Personally, I would just tell the boys to adhere to the rules regarding nursing rooms and get the librarian to help if need be. That would be about it. Why should I go through the hassle of taping and broadcasting? It is my affairs after all, not anyone else's, and if I come across someone unpleasant, well, that was my unlucky day then.
 
Still, what the two boys did were wrong. In the first place, they should not even be in the nursing room, let alone having their own party there. That is the reason why nursing rooms are called such - they are meant for mothers to nurse their babies when need be. We come from a society where people are shy and not used to breastfeed, nor see mothers breastfeeing, their babies anywhere in public, hence many buildings have nursing rooms for this purpose.
 
Are the boys trying to say that they are so important that they are the only ones entitled to use the room and no other person can, even a crying hungry baby? And still behave so rudely when they were politely asked to leave so the hungry crying baby can be fed milk by the mother? What do these boys drink when they were young? Devil's milk?
 
Sometimes I think when our society progresses, people's ethics and morals also went down. Are we so busy chasing material goods and academic results that we totally forgot about character education? Is being rich and being top everything people think about now, and that by being rich and smart, one thinks they can get away with everything?
 
I guess also because nowadays with families getting smaller and kids getting lesser, many of these kids come from one- or two-child families. By the time they were born, they would have around seven adults fussing over them - their parents, their paternal grandparents, their maternal grandparents, and their domestic helper. Since young, they were the kings of the world, what modern society now calls the "Little Emperor" syndrome. Is it any wonder those kids grow up thinking of nothing except themselves, and that the world should only revolve around them?
 
I feel so sorry for the boys' parents. They are minors, so ultimately people will blame their parents for not bringing them up properly enough. But actually, nowadays parents can bring up the kids so well, yet the kids themselves do otherwise. So are the parents really at fault if the kids think they are too smart for their own good?
 
Personally, if those are my kids, I would be so ashamed of myself and them. I would punish them and write out a public letter of apology. If parents do not discipline their own kids when young, who is to know what they will do when they get older? That is why the thought of parenthood scares me because when you have a kid, you really worry endlessly how the kid will turn out to be!

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