This is the time of the year when our streets will become violent by the day. There will be fights and troubles galore. Our young people will not sleep. They will howl around all night, high on things they ought not to indulge in.

Schools are getting over. That means our young people will be on the streets round the clock. Already a sizeable number of them are loitering in the city corners dark and bright, engaging themselves in unhealthy habits. This is the time when crime rate in the cities go up. Why is this happening? Should it be this way?

Already, we are experiencing rise in crime rate, especially in Thimphu, where concentration of young people is higher than most other dzongkhags.

What we can draw from this pattern of development is that our parents are not doing what they are supposed to do as elders and torchbearers. Our children are growing up without guidance. More significantly, our children are growing up without love and care.

This is indicative of a serious ailment in our society. Should we accept it blithely? Or should we be worried about the change that is robbing our society of its very soul?

Affluence gives birth to complications. We have seen it and felt it. What is pathetic is that we have not been able to correct ourselves even so. What is all too apparent is that our parents are giving up their responsibility. Teachers have done their part, well beyond their capacity, in fact. Education of a child is the responsibility of parents as much as it is teachers’.

Losing traditional values is losing one’s face altogether. This is exactly the problem we are facing today as we prosper in the new age of development. While father plays archery all day long, mother wastes family wealth gambling away all night. In the mean time, our children are left on their own.

Obviously, our streets will be full of young people eager to create problems because they have not the direction, love and care that they need at this formative age. Employment opportunities are becoming scarcer by the day. What our parents need to show our young people is that one ought to be really competitive. It is not enough that our children do well. They need to excel. That is, in essence, nation-building.

Our own eminent philosopher put it thusly: As I am, so is my nation. Future of our nation depends on the worth of our citizens.

Perhaps it is because of this lack that the nation is facing a serious problem of youth unemployment. It is easy to blame the government.  What have we done to our children as parents? We need to ask this question, repeatedly, and try to find a real answer.

If we haven’t, this is the time when we need to look at the tender and promising face of our children and lead them on to where they aspire to be as a responsible citizens of this country.

This is the time when our parents need to be more educators than mere progenitors.

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