I have always been a heartfelt opponent of kiddy graduations – not high school, which really marks a transition and talks of lessons learnt and new pathways into adulthood. But kindergarten graduation ceremonies, which are more for the parents than for the kids.
And now they have added summer camp graduation to the list.
As it is, summer camps in Bahrain are often glorified babysitting sessions with a bit of art and DIY sandwich-making thrown in to justify the fees.
If you and your kid are lucky, you also get some sessions of useful stuff like coding and confidence-building but nothing that will not lend itself to a spot of Talent Show performances at the ‘graduation night’.
But now there is an insidious kind of ‘silent graduation’ happening.
Look around you. In the interest of teaching children to contribute to the community, parents and schools are pushing youngsters to go beyond beach clean-ups and make every hobby or talent pay its way on the journey of good intentions.
As a result, the whole charity opportunity turns performative, a gimmick.
It’s a badge for the parents as much as for the children to wear in social circles and not about the connection with the cause, which becomes secondary. It is most common as children reach high school age, when championing charities becomes a brownie point for university applications.
It is certainly not wrong to teach children to grow into responsive, empathetic and sensitive adults and it is never too early to begin. And, such actions are best encouraged with a generous dollop of praise. However, when we invite the public to applaud our children’s compassion or our own and make the applause the reason for our charity, we are sowing the seeds for an egoistic public vanity that is never satiated.
I recall, during the Gulf War, many of us adults were busy trying to help collect donations in cash or kind for refugees waiting for onward journeys in Jordan.
Spurred by our fevered efforts, the children in our circle decided to stage a fund-raising variety show on the terrace of one house. It was a very Louisa May Alcott effort, with posters and hand-painted tickets, costumes and a potluck canteen attached to the stage.
At the end of two weeks of work and entertainment, the kids raised about BD50 and our ‘Chief Guest’, a community elder, gave an equal amount to round up the figure.
So far so good. Where the whole thing went from charity to PR was when one over-enthusiastic parent shot off a Press release about the event – and got i t published. The children were thrilled. But in all the glare of publicity, they forgot the cause they raised money for, the lessons learnt about the hard work it takes to make a charity programme work. It became just about the news item.
We would be far better off showing our children that charity can be more effective when silently practised, without a ‘show and tell’ attached to it.
meeraresponse@gmail.com
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