Unheard Voice Of The Teens (I)

There are certain things parents do, though out of ignorance, that affect or damage their children’s future. Sincerely, some parents aren’t aware and this is made worse by the mere fact that children hardly speak up/out. Yet, some other parents who are aware do it with impunity, because they feel they are doing it for the child’s own good.
This is actually bad as it’s the parents decision not the child’s. Their choices and decisions matter a lot..
Most parents happen to be the cause of their children’s misfortune and lack of growth. How? By choosing a particular career for them. The very big and common mistake most parents make is choosing and forcing a particular career on a child. Those two fields (Law and Medicine) is crowded because most of the students are not there on their own will. Some are just there to please their parents.
That desire for quick and large money has blinded most of our parents, and has made them to ruin the lives of their innocent kids. Now, because those two fields (Law and Medicine) brings in money and recognition, our parents forget about our happiness and dreams and push us to do them. Yes, it brings money to your table but it also feels bad doing something with the mindset of pleasing our parents and not ourselves. A life career shouldn’t just be something to bring money to your table. Although I know that money is very important, but it should also be something you do with happiness. The moment you do your career with joy and happiness, you’ll do it perfectly and make money out of it.
We, the teenagers, want to be given a chance or little chances to choose our career without being denied of financial support from our parents. One must not be a doctor or lawyer to succeed. There are other occupations that are being degraded. But then again, our parents aren’t totally at fault because, our politicians have painted these two courses (Law and Medicine) to be the only highly profitable profession in the country.
Yes, at times most teens make mistakes and chooses some low class and less profitable course of study but it is the duty of the parents to watch their child and say, “No my child! I don’t think you’ll be good at this one. Try or go for another one” this is how it should be done, if the parents don’t see the desire in that child’s body for the course. Most kids have a hard time in choosing or deciding what they want to be. Most kids are scared to be what they want because, their parents wouldn’t be in it support of because they don’t have financial support. In most cases, single parenting damages a child’s future. How? Because, the single mother or single father would likely want the best for their kids and shut down their child’s dream.
We, the teens have dreams and our dreams can only come through if you have parental guidance and control. Our dreams can only come through if our parents put their heads, ego and desire for quick money down and listen to us and also pay attention to our dreams.
Though, most parents will say, what they do and the career they choose I’d got the child’s brighter future. The question here is, Is the child happy with this decision? Or can the child do it or cope well? Few months ago, I read a poem on Facebook that actually got my interest. It really made a lot of sense. It’s very long but I’ll summarize it. It says; A mum gives birth and the minute she gave birth, she called the child a lawyer while, the father called the child a doctor. They didn’t give the child a chance to make a choice. Now, they kept on training the child with this doctor occupation planted into his head. There wasn’t a way for him to say NO to it because, they weren’t interested in any other occupation apart from that one. He wasn’t good at it because that was what they wanted him to do, they paid their way through. He got all the necessary papers, documents and degrees and was finally addressed as a doctor. Not once did he pass his papers without cheating and other corrupt measures. Not once did he try treating a patient. Why? Because his parents didn’t really care. They only wanted the title “Iya doctor”
This continued for a year or so. He was earning large amount of money for doing nothing. Not until one day when they needed the so called best doctor to save a patients life by operating on the patient. That very day was the day he killed a patient and was sentenced to life imprisonment. His life was being ruined by his precious parents. His dreams were crushed. His parents killed him by not letting him decide. He was going to die because he wanted to please them. He was going to die because his parents only cared about their reputation and recognition.
So, my advise for our loving parents out there, is to please hear our voices and let us decide for ourself. We want you to guide us through with out dreams and believe in us. For once, put us first and into consideration and see how we’ll succeed. All teens are talented and have their areas of specialization. All we need is parental guidance and support.
Akwu lives in Port Harcourt.

By:  Cherie Akwu