Acharya Prashant explains that parents have first committed the mistake of bringing another person into this world of agony, longing, and suffering. They compensate for this by investing themselves in raising the child. Therefore, it is imperative for parents to provide education, food, and spend money on the child. This is a compensation. The speaker emphasizes that this is not a favor to the child; it is a thing of justice. Parents owe it to the child. The child is very justified in asking, "Did I really plead to you to bring me into this world? Did I send a formal application?" The speaker states that parents, in their moment of personal wisdom, planned indiscretion, or unplanned lust, gave birth. He suggests the child can now sue and demand damages. All the money spent on the kid is actually a compensation for that moment of indiscretion. Whether it was a conscious indiscretion (a planned birth) or an unconscious one (an unplanned birth), the fact is that it is an indiscretion, and parents must pay for it. The school fees are a fine, a penalty from existence. The mother carrying the child for nine months is a severe penalty for going blind in emotion or lust and allowing herself to get pregnant. Acharya Prashant describes birth as bringing a shrieking, screeching thing into the world, for which parents must pay the fine, starting with hospital fees. He argues that it is not merely a mistake but a crime to bring suffering to the world where there was none. The minimum parents can do is to liberate the child. Giving the child the best environment to rid him of all body and social identification is the minimum parents can do. The parents have given the kid the cage that the body is, and as the kid grows up, there is much more to encage him. The role, the dharma of parents, is to give the kid conditions that would enable his liberation. This is not a favor but their obligation. If they cannot meet this obligation, they are committing a double crime. The first is to give birth, and the second is to give birth without having the credentials to act as worthy parents. Classically, it is said that the child owes a lot to the parents (debt to the mother, debt to the father), but the speaker asserts the fact is totally different: the parents owe a lot to the child. The parents must be very clear on who the debtor is. When you are giving birth, you are actually giving birth to a big, humongous debt, and you have to settle that debt.
