[To Miss Monica, I apologise for being unable to hand in my composition book with the latest essay in it. So allow me to post the essay here on blog form. I believe I owe you this.]
Question: Children these days are given too much freedom. Do you agree?
Freedom. What is freedom? Freedom, according to the English dictionary, is defined as solely the right to do anything you want without being controlled or restricted. Now the question is, are children these days given too much freedom or are they being restricted? I, for one, am not certain as to whether to agree or disagree to the statement that children in the present day are given too much freedom but I can say that there are various different views, opinions and facts regarding the said topic. If you were to ask me which side I stand on, I would say that I stand on neutral ground.
Let us perceive it in this manner: there are many children all over the world out of the population of 7.4 billion people in existence today. Thus, we can find that children would experience freedom differently from one another depending on which part of the world they live in, what culture they fall under, their ethnicity, their religion, their financial and social status, and etcetera. Firstly, let us start with the children who do not have a lot of freedom. Under this category, there are a few types of children who experience this from the least to the most extreme cases such as from strict parents to child labor and slavery. Take North Korea for an example. They are brainwashing their children from an early age, since kindergarten, and enforcing ridiculously horrendous policies and doctrines upon them such as to worship the "Supreme Leader" (a.k.a Kim Jong-Un), do not question the government and so on. This leads to the deprivation of the freedom of speech. What if children and families in North Korea are skeptical? They are not even allowed to think! Speaking against the "Dear Leader" or the government (otherwise known as the regime) can end you up in prison. Also know that citizens of North Korea do not have access to any media or information, and yes, that means no internet. So, with that being said, do these children have a lot of freedom? No. They do not have freedom at all.
Aside from government being one of the main factors, let's look at financial status. Poor children and families do not have much compared to rich families (we will get to that later). Children in poverty often struggle to be able to gain access to basic needs such as education, have very limited resources, no money and little food. Such an example is the children in Africa. Yes, you read that right. No matter how cliche it seems, it is very true that hunger still exists in Africa to the point where the children themselves don't get to eat! So, do these children get the freedom to choose what to eat? No, they don't. What about education? Majority of children in Africa do not get education. Some lack the means to afford it while the education system itself is corrupted. Do they get the freedom to learn anything they want? No, they do not. Thus, this leads to them being restricted to their own grounds, not being able to discover and learn many things.
How about the children abducted and used as laborers, child soldiers and sex slaves? Do they have freedom? No, absolutely not. They are all subject to slavery. Child trafficking is one of the biggest of crimes against human, and more specifically, children's rights. Child trafficking's definition is: the illegal moving of children, typically for the purposes of forced labor or sexual exploitation. There are many cases of child trafficking from all over the world ranging from the United States to even our own country, Malaysia. The typical syndicate would first, after abducting the child would go to certain lengths to obtain the best of benefits they can get for themselves out of the child, which would mean unpleasant things happening to the child like shaving one's hair, amputating a limb or even surgically removing a child's organ to be sold in the black market, or simply using the child as a sex slave, a beggar, worker, or soldier is simply a crime in itself. Do these children have freedom? Not at all.
Now let us discuss the least serious issue of children without freedom: strict parents. To my friends who are reading this essay at this point, you think you do not have freedom? Look at the world around you. You should be grateful you are not this unfortunate (as the children mention in paragraphs above). Even in saying this however, us children, and more typically, Asian children especially would cringe at the sound of parents. From what I know, or at least from my point of view (to which some or even most would agree on) is that our parents would tend to restrict us as much as possible. "Do your homework!", "Have you studied/Have you finished studying?", "No playing computer games!", "Go read a book, don't watch TV! Bad for your eyes", "Do your maths", "No going out. Stay at home and do chores", and so on and so forth. They keep on at it, nagging and lecturing us every single day, making sure we become the "ideal child" and keep up to their expectations and such. This so much to the extent that there are jokes and memes being made about your typical Asian parent who talks about getting A's for your exams and becoming a doctor, lawyer or an engineer. However, this is all because they love us and they want the best for us. Furthermore, children with strict parents often come out as more disciplined (or so I think). Do these children have freedom? Not entirely at an early stage but when they grow up, they get to think for themselves and use their freedom wisely.
How about the children who do have freedom? What do we say about them? There are certain factors which contribute to children's freedom such as lenient parents, a modernised environment and community, of one which enforces children's rights and financially stable or wealthy families. Children who live in such conditions get the right to freedom, and the most, if not the best, out of everything. Let us take a look at the more modernised parts of the world. Examples are: the United States of America, the United Kingdom and Europe. These parts of the world share a few common traits: they have a good strong economy, upholds the law and children's rights. The law being kept there ensures that each child is protected and that crime against children is prevented. Do children here have freedom? Yes, they have the freedom of security.
Children who have a family that is financially stable, or even wealthy, is certain to obtain the kind of freedom they want to have, such as eating out at an expensive dinner or buying gadgets ranging from a smartphone to a video game console, or getting more than enough pocket money for the whole month. You name it, they have it. All that they have is theirs. Children in financially stable families live a good comfortable life within their means while those in wealthier families reap more benefits.
They have the ability to afford basic needs such a good home, education, medical supplies and medication. Wealthier families also have all that plus everything they want to buy, which means more for them.
This leads to the next point, lenient parents. Of course, not all wealthy families have lenient parents. Just most. Often you would imagine a rich parent saying to his/her child, "What do you want? I can buy this for you if you'd like", "Just name the item and I'll get it for you", "I can buy you anything you want" and anything that is similar. Wealthy families always have the money for anything and everything, especially for their children. Whenever they are in a tough situation, they can buy out of it. That is how children with wealthy families are raised. The parents themselves are not strict. So basically, they can do anything they want so long as the money is still there.
However, some of these children tend to abuse their freedom whether or not they realise it. Often times there are children who take things for granted. Take for example the children mentioned in the above paragraph, the "rich kids". Some of these will be spoilt by their parents so much to the extent of having their minds shaped to think that they can get anything they want to have, and when they do get it, they will always ask for more. Besides that, some children with freedom will seek no sense of responsibility. They want to do whatever they want to do but they do not want to take responsibility of anything such as their responsibility to do the house chores, or to be responsible of a mistake made such as breaking the window while playing ball. They want a carefree life without being "burdened" or "controlled" with responsibility. This paragraph shows why such a question is posed towards the freedom of children and as to whether it is being too much.
To conclude, I must say that I neither agree nor disagree that children are given too much freedom nowadays. It is true that we live in a modern era where a lot of freedom has been given to children and it is true that there are instances of children who abuse it. However, in some parts of the world you will see children with guns, children in chains, children in scars crying in pain. You will see children without freedom. So it all comes down to this: there is no such thing as too much or too little freedom. It is either they have freedom or they do not.
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