When the control mechanism becomes a wrong panacea

It is an established truth that whatever we do in life is dictated by our inward desires and cravings. We crave a particular kind of food and so we eat it in order to please our longings.

We also crave for a particular vehicle and so we buy and drive to satisfy our desires. We crave to have something and so we work to get it. The same is true for shaping our nation.

Sexual immorality is something our society frowns upon. There are quite a number of moral lessons on the need to live a virtuous life. Many parents get to the point of educating their wards on unguarded sexual behaviours among other societal ills. This, they do to ensure that their wards do not fall prey to unwanted pregnancies and other Sexually Transmitted Diseases otherwise known as STD’S. Others also feel engaging their wards on sex education would rather expose them to practice in the short term.

Accordingly, they put in mechanisms like child control on television and deprive them of access to the television remote so as to prevent them from seeing romantic scenes in movies. These parents genuinely want the best for their wards and trust the mechanisms to check. My question is “do these mechanisms really check the child”?

Some female children are always kept indoors to prevent a boy or man from taking undue advantage of them. As a result, they only resort to video chatting and phone calls with mates and friends. There are times when they inquire from parents on the rationale behind depriving them of socialization. As they continue to enjoy the house arrest, a lot of thoughts come to mind. The aspect of getting to know the unknown.

Their plight even worsens since their parents are always busily working. Friends become their first point of counsel. These children discuss issues in perspective and try to relate to their very lives; the good, the bad and the ugly.

Parents are comfortably enjoying themselves and making money because of the usual notion that “my children are very respectful, accommodating and sexually moral”. This brings me to the numerous nude pictures and videos we see every now and then. Majority of these extracts emanate from the quarters of some of these overly controlled children who have been kept indoors for some time.

They begin to explore by way of experimenting the very thing they have been deprived of for God knows how long. With their smartphone in hand, access to the mass media becomes a done deal. Watching romantic movies is a normal day-to-day activity to them as well. They tend to say “my dear, my parents are so strict, they don’t even give me a breathing space but never mind would make time for us.”

This is one of the contributing factors of the many teenage pregnancies and the constant sex tapes on the mass media today. Some parents must make time for their wards and educate them on their adolescent reproductive health and how it affects them. I believe this will go long way to reliably put these wards on the right track thereby eliminating any thought of scepticism on their reproductive health.

Moreover, the issues of increasing sex tapes on our mass media today would be brought to the barest minimum. When the child gets to know the implications of nudity in the short and long terms, he or she will be conscious of it and embrace an upright way of living. The fact that some people portray nudity doesn’t make it a norm. You don’t need nudity to showcase beauty and excel in your field of discipline. Remember, your grannies were once gorgeous, pretty and stunning like you. Old age must be there to humble you. A time comes when the ass will experience a dramatic fall. There comes a time when you will lose the smooth face. Even the long heels will be a nuisance not to talk of low-waist jeans and tops. So I say, how will life be at 70?

The author, Stephen Bernard Donkor won the African Journalists for Economic Opportunity Training (AJEOT-2018) Best Story of the Year and a GIJ Student.

Writer’s email: sbdonkorjunior@gmail.com