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| Photo by Martins Akpan |
By: Lois Otse Adams
On this special day to celebrate children, I want to make this humble appeal to parents, guardians and society at large to endeavour to develop the child; this is to enable us live in a sane society that will provide to every citizen the environment to flourish.
Who then is the child? He/she is trained regardless of who the parents are, regardless of where the parents come from, regardless of the status of the parents. The Child is the most luckiest human on earth, he/she is balance because he/she is owned by everyone, he/she is catered for by the government, he/she is a product of a collective efforts, he/she is one that the society looks up to for better creation of policies that work and a good driver of the economy. The child is the future leader of tomorrow, he/she carries the society to an enviable level to compete with other great nations, he/she is the identity of a nation.
Who is your child? Your child is your own and your own alone. He/she is selfishly nurtured to become a bread winner of a family, only the family looks upto to him, the one who may not be remembered or heard in the society, the one who may not have the society at heart, the one who may not respect and uphold the rule of law and downgrade the society, the one who will disrespect elders. He is the one the parents may ignorantly frustrate the future, he/she may be the one who cannot compete with his contemporaries and so on.
This therefore means that whatever a child becomes is the investment given by either the parents or the society. The child is trained up to become excellent citizen, the child can be trained up by parents to become societal material therefore, parents should endeavour to train up a child in line with what the society may need and how the child can be the problem solver to nations, they should broaden their training and expose him/her to what is expected of him in the society, than, inculcate in him the cultures that will not take him far in life. Help him/her to become national figure and not family bread winner.
A child can be likened to the gaming sector, where you have lottery and gambling. Lottery that is likend to ‘the child’ is played for good causes, regulated by the society, helps the society to grow the economy and every body benefits from it. While gambling that is likened to ‘your child’ is a game that is selfishly played to empower one person, the one person takes the winnings home to empower himself and family and not the society and it ends there.
The society is in dire need of ‘the child’, the child who will make her society proud, the child who can uphold policies to make her society fit the global space, the child who will make the society compete other nations on relationship issues etc and not your child who will disrespect the society.
As we celebrate the 2019 Children’s Day, all hands must be on deck to nurture every child to become ‘the child’, create enabling environments and make him/her responsible; this is to ensure a safe haven and a better Nigeria.
Nurture him/her (a child) to be national material (the child) and not personal tool (your child).
Happy Children’s Day
