Indian schoolkids tying thaali in school - what went wrong?

While other pages are busy trolling the kids who tied thaali (marriage string) in their school toilet, maligning and ridiculing them, we decided to write an essay about it, Kannammaa style.

What went wrong? The kids can’t be older than 16 and athukulle, ‘thaali katte kaluthu arikithu” (neck is itching for thaali) I don’t entirely blame them. They’re kids, in hormonal stage, in love and they thought this ritual is cool and did it in enthrallment. They think that thaali makes them husband and wife. They don’t know the responsibility marriage entails. They don’t know that marriage is more than ‘Nee paartha vizhigal” song. They don’t know that they can end up having a baby when they are far from ready. They don’t know anything - they’re youth drunk in love and there was no one to guide them except for equally ignorant and misguided friends, that is, who supported them by taking the photo. THEY DIDN’T KNOW THAT THEY ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO DO THIS.

So, now who is to blame? The kids? No, they’re too young. It’s the parents, for not having ‘the talk’ and providing guidance for their children. I recently visited my cousin sister whose children are in the puberty phase. My nephew’s voice was breaking and hints of facial hair were pushing out and we were making fun of him. My cousin sis was like, ‘He’s old enough to have a gf and I told him to have a man to man talk with his daddy while the girls talk to me.” This is what every Indian parents need to do. And, their PC is in the living room, not in the kids’ separate rooms - the parents know that if got separate PCs in private rooms, before long, the kids will know who are Mia Khalifa and Sunny Leone. These are astute steps that will prevent this malady of explosion of hormones that result in our kids doing stuff like this. I’ve written on ‘the talk’ before and I am going to say it again. Talk to your kids about these stuff. Tell them if they feel attracted to a member of opposite sex, you should be first to know from them. As parents, it’s your responsibility to steer your kids way through a path cluttered by confusion and conundrum. They need you, they might not know it but they need you. Be there for them.

Emphasize on education parents. Stress on the importance of education. Tell your children, “If you have a bf/gf, it would be neat if you study together and by study, I only mean study.” Yes, assert that education is the numero uno silo in life. Drill it into em. Don’t watch mega serials or Tamil movies when your kids are studying. When they study, sit with them and show interest in what they’re doing - check their homework. When these are done, even if your kid has a bf/gf he or she won’t lose sight on what’s important, studies. They can help each other in studies and it doesn’t matter whether their relationship works out or not, they won’t do stunts like tying thaali and ultimately do well in academics.

If parental guidance is correctly applied, our kids won’t do these kinds of things. Really, what these kids did is a reflection of our regressing community - Tamil movies indulgence, education not being priority and the over glorification of love stemming from Tamil movies as well as myopic worldview.

Kids these days are more advanced than us. We can’t whack and slap them. Instead we need to understand them and reinvent our upbringing style.