All The World's A Playground

I'm a pediatrician, and it has been told that pediatrics is one of the toughest medical specialties, because it deals with young children who tough to understand and 'handle'. This statement couldn't be any farther from the truth.

Before I became a pediatrician, I too had been a believer of this view. I had had very little opportunity to interact with children, much less understand them, and they were truly an enigma for me. 

My earliest personal experiences with a child was first, with my nephew, and later, my daughter. The moments I've passed with them have been no less than eye-opening and life-changing. Every day spent with them showed me my drab world in its raw beauty as seen through the unassuming, wonder-filled eyes of a child.

In fact, all children are often better than grown-ups with many 'superior' traits. They live in a simple world with simple beliefs. All it takes is a keen eye and a loving mind to understand them.

Children have very few negative emotions or thoughts in them. Every adult is to be trusted. There is no hatred in any person. Anything that they desire is attainable. Fire will not burn. Bees will not sting. A child who is picked up will only be loved and cuddled. The blueness of the sky is astonishing.

Children also have an uncanny ability to see right through you. Even a young infant will look right into your eyes and assess you without fear. They have an extraordinary power of perception that immediately senses an untrue person.

In the same way, children don't hesitate to express their thoughts frankly. Nearly all adults have had the embarrassing experience of a child voicing some unpleasant fact without the diplomacy often seen in adults. They sometimes utter profound truths in a very simple, unassuming manner. Even when a slightly older child has learnt the art of lying, one has to simply look at his eyes, and there it is! You immediately know it isn't the truth.

It is only as the child grows, he learns that the world is a dangerous place filled with dangerous people. He encounters failure, hurt, pain, sorrow, deceit, anxiety, doubt. Slowly but surely, he becomes a cynic. He becomes an adult.

All children are born guileless. It is the environment around them that moulds them in different ways. The negative traits of the adults around them teach them to be careful. A father who does not respect his wife unconsciously teaches his son that women are inferior to men. A teacher who punishes a child for a mistake that the child has confessed to, conveys the message that it is better to lie, to avoid punishment. An aunt who talks to her maid in a derogatory manner teaches him that the hierarchy in society is based on financial status.

In the past few years, I've journeyed through life as a pediatrician, a mother, an aunt, and an ardent fan of little children who continue to show the dark, gloomy, suffering-ridden world in rich, vibrant hues, filled with promises and hopes of a beautiful life. I've learnt from them that every moment of our lives is to be lived to the fullest. The present is indeed the greatest present we will ever have.

In the current era, we place a lot of emphasis on education of children. But perhaps it is time we learned a thing or two from them. The world will then become a better place to live in.

Loud Speaker