Acharya Prashant explains that people who lead contented, complete, and satisfied lives do not find it necessary to intrude into the lives of their children. If they have something to accomplish, they place the responsibility upon themselves and would not say that what is left unfinished in their lives must be taken forward by their offspring. On the contrary, people who are themselves frustrated, incomplete, and insecure barge too much into the lives of their sons and daughters. If somebody is intruding too much into the life of someone else, it is a sure-shot proof that the intruder is not joyful within himself. Because you are not joyful within yourself, you feel the need to poke your nose everywhere, and because kids are easy targets who live under the weight of morality, you exploit them. Before acting as a custodian of your children's lives, you must ask if you are sure you know for yourself what is right and wrong, or what is meant by a right life. Are you an exemplar of what it means to live beautifully? If not, you must first discover this for yourself before you impose yourself upon anybody else, be it your husband, wife, or child. The speaker urges listeners to look at the quality of their own lives, decisions, and minds. He asks, "Have you settled down?" He compares an unsettled mind to dust that rises on a road and has not yet settled. If there is dust all over in your mind, there is no question of settling down, so why make your kids' lives miserable by asking them to settle down quickly? The speaker states that there are many exploited groups in the world, such as ethnic minorities, lower castes, and people with physical disabilities, but if there is one group that is the most exploited and cannot even complain, it is the child. The child is the most exploited person in the world, ever and always. He contrasts the physical burden on a mule, which is temporary, with the mental burden given to children, which they carry for their entire lives. This mental burden includes concepts, lifestyle, morality, religion, obligations, responsibilities, patterns of thought, and distorted histories. This exploitation is also seen in marketing, where heartless techniques are used to target and tempt children whose brains are not yet fully developed. Parents do not emerge from dark caves; young people become parents. The same darkness that engulfs our lives becomes the darkness that surrounds the child. A parent is first and foremost a person, and that person is responsible for discovering the truth for himself. If you have not done that, you will fail in all your roles in life—as a husband, wife, parent, employee, or friend. The man whose mind is not in the proper place cannot be a good anything. The issue is not about parenting but about being the right mind; then you will also be the right parent.
