The Lost Art of Parenting
There was a time when home itself was the first and most important school. Parents—many of them without formal education, and far from the luxuries we see today—planted the earliest seeds of moral values, ethics, respect, and empathy in their children. They didn’t raise us with the help of glossy parenting manuals or endless parenting workshops; they raised us with the wisdom of life’s hardships, an unshakable moral compass, and a sense of duty to God and community. Today, in an age where peace of mind is a distant dream and material pursuits dominate our waking hours, one can’t help but feel that we have traded the depth of their parenting for the glitter of superficial success.
For our elders, raising children was the most important investment they could make—more valuable than building palatial homes or hoarding wealth. Their mission was not just to produce achievers but to shape good human beings. It’s a mission in which we, despite our degrees and economic standing, are faltering. In our relentless race to give our children every advantage, we have replaced trust with control, values with indulgence, and human connection with gadgets. Where will this so-called “helicopter parenting” lead us? Each day, the social fabric frays a little more, and the values that once formed the foundation of life—honesty, compassion, respect—are pushed further into the background.
The parenting of our elders belonged to a different moral universe. In their time, sons did not kill parents, children did not take their own lives over trivial disputes, and drug abuse was unheard of. Their lives were modest and often defined by struggle, yet their parenting was praiseworthy. They kept their children close during the most formative years, as advised in the Hadith, allowing them to learn naturally from the world around them. Instead of outsourcing childcare to maids or rushing toddlers into elite schools at three years old, they allowed children to grow under their watchful eyes, surrounded by family and community.
They were not financiers for their children’s whims; they were moral guides. They taught traditional skills—handicrafts, farming, budgeting—long before “skill-based education” became an official policy like NEP 2020. They instilled the virtues of hard work, modesty, truthfulness, and hospitality, knowing that children learn more from what they see than what they are told. Even in poverty, they lived honestly, trusting their Creator and teaching their children to do the same. The officers, educators, scholars, doctors, and respected elders we still admire today are often the products of those homes—homes where love came with discipline, and freedom came with responsibility.
By contrast, modern parenting often treats children as extensions of unfulfilled dreams. We push them into competitions they never chose, protect them from every discomfort, and equate success with material prosperity. The results are visible: a generation entangled in the web of social media vanity, digital escapism, and moral confusion. In our elders’ time, surroundings were cleaner, food was purer, communities were safer, and crime rates were low—not because life was perfect, but because values acted as an invisible policing force.
Those elders understood that what you sow, you reap. Their greatest investments were prayers—du’a—and heartfelt guidance, not expensive tuition or imported toys. They prayed for their children to be good humans first, then doctors, engineers, or whatever they wished to become. Their parenting produced people who could shoulder responsibility, lead communities, and inspire others. The towering spiritual figures of history—from Hazrat Ghaus-ul-Azam Dastageer Sahib (RA) to Hazrat Bayazid Bastami (RA)—were products of such nurturing, sincere parenting.
Today, however, our children are more fragile despite having more opportunities. A single parental rebuke can trigger extreme reactions—sometimes even suicide. In the elders’ time, no child dared to bring shame upon their family or community. Zareef Ahmad Zareef once mocked the modern generation as “plastic chicks—shrinking in the cold, melting in the heat.” Sadly, it’s an image that fits.
While both traditional and modern parenting have their merits, the lesson is clear: we need a balance. We must blend the respect, discipline, and moral grounding of our elders’ methods with the empathy, adaptability, and awareness of today’s parenting. If we continue to prioritise appearances over character, we risk raising a generation well-equipped to navigate apps, but not life.
The goal, as it was for our elders, should remain unchanged—to raise compassionate, resilient, and principled individuals who can stand tall in a world that constantly shifts beneath their feet. In a time when many of us are trapped in the exhausting cycle of pleasing others, perhaps it’s worth remembering: the hand that rocks the cradle still rules the world, but only if it holds the child close enough to pass on its values.
Manzoor Akash is educator, author and regular contributor to GK’s Senior Citizens’ Lounge
