By Piao Huize
“Only if you study hard can you make a living” and “I force you to study for your own good” seem to have become the parents’ catch phrases. Many people believe that in this society where only academic grades can be exchanged for the future, what the children think is not important as long as they can pass exams with high scores; whether the children are happy or not is not important as long as they can rank among the best.
Gradually, the children are tied down by their parents, who just know to compare their children with the straight-A students. To let their children cut a brilliant figure and stand out, the parents replace all their children’s hobbies with mathematics and physics and chemistry, and replace their freedom with all kinds of training classes. The parents just want their children to stand out very soon but never consider the burdens their children have to carry, which causes more and more students to commit suicide because of the unbearable stress. The relationship between the two generations has become more and more tense and the problem of generation gap gets more serious. Who actually should be blamed for such a tragedy?
On Children, a play on the subject of education, is based on the writer Wu Xiaole’s novel of the same title, five stories of which are adapted into five short plays including The Last Day of Molly, Mom’s Remote, ADHD is Necessary, Peacock, and Child of the Cat. They are shown with the style involving slight science fiction element, and they are mixed with reality and fable, making people rethink deeply. Although the play tells five different stories, each story holds a subject that is inseparable from education. Unlike the usual plays that just tell stories in a tame way, however, this play is given slight science fiction by the director to bring the audience a more vivid and thrilling feeling when they enjoy it. This boldly creative practice doesn’t influence the feeling of watching the play, but instead it takes us into the plots and helps us find the roles of our own. We can silently taste our own lives and feel the characters’ mixed feelings before the screen.
Far more important is that the play raises a social phenomenon in a sharp and direct way. To make their children have good results and attend a good university, the parents seem to distort their humanity before the honor and rank; they are just like monsters putting endless pressure on their children. Under such control, the children are deprived of their own lifestyle and even their own thoughts; they have to live according to their parents’ thoughts. Gradually, the children become dull, melancholic, and self-abased. Is this what the parents want to see? The director of the play Chen Huiling said: “Since we were children, we have been told that we must study hard to get a good job in the future. But are these really your main points in life? What do you hope for? Your children get happiness or you get happiness from your children’s achievements?” The title of the play even more directly shows the subject: Are your children still your children? Do you really treat them as your children?
God’s words say: “Everyone starts planning as soon as they have children: I want my child to receive what kind of education, attend what university, and then find a good job, and have a stable footing and status in society. That is, the first thing to have in life is knowledge, an academic degree, and then one will have status and power in society. That way, they will have living capital throughout their lives and power in the world, making it easy for them to survive and make a steady living. They won’t have to worry about food, clothing and shelter in the future. … because of the saying: ‘The worth of other pursuits is small, the study of books excels them all.’ Furthermore, competition in this modern society is especially intense. If they don’t have a university degree or have a firm foothold in society, making a living becomes a problem in the future. This is everybody’s thinking and point of view. That is, what you learn and what kind of educational background you can achieve will decide your livelihood, your future. In other words, people intend to rely on this thing to survive throughout life, and they see it as especially important. That’s why everyone sees receiving a high-level education and getting into a top university as the number one most important thing for their children. … What is mankind’s point of view? They will not be able to survive and have a stable footing in this society and the world if they don’t have such things, and they will be inferior, poor, and base people. That is why, if someone doesn’t have knowledge, is uneducated, or does not have a high level of education in your eyes, you will despise them, look down on them, show contempt for them, and not take them seriously. If you let your children do this and nurture your children to do these things, your point of view and your motive are not right in the first place.” After experiencing some failure in their life, many parents begin to pin their hopes on their children. The fate is not up to man, but they still want to rely on their own endeavor to manipulate their children’s fates and bossily have their children live according to their plans, hoping that their children would help them fulfill their desire of longing to see their children succeed. Such a distorted thought makes their humanity become all the more exposed before the academic grades. The parents understand and encourage their children less, but scold and threaten them more, just like cold-blooded animals. To improve their children’s academic grades, they never consider their feelings or burdens. The children lose their happy and colorful childhood and youth that they should have had. How many people exactly are deceived and harmed by the thoughts of “The worth of other pursuits is small, the study of books excels them all” and “Knowledge can change your fate”? How much exactly are the children hurt? Although the society constantly calls for improving the parent-child relationship, in fact, the intense relationship keeps worsening. The higher the parents’ expectations are, the greater the children’s pressure is, and the more serious the problem of generation gap becomes. It’s like a bow; the more the strength is used, the tenser the relationship becomes, and one day it will certainly be broken.
God’s words say: “God is man’s only Lord, God is the only Master of human fate, and so it is impossible for man to dictate his own fate, impossible for him to surpass it. No matter how great one’s abilities, one cannot influence, much less orchestrate, arrange, control, or change the fates of others. Only the unique God Himself dictates all things for man, for only He possesses the unique authority that holds sovereignty over human fate; and so only the Creator is man’s unique Master. God’s authority holds sovereignty not only over created humanity, but over non-created beings that no human can see, over the stars, over the cosmos. This is an indisputable fact, a fact that truly exists, which no human or thing can change.” God’s words clearly tell us that God is the only Master of mankind, and that no human or thing can change or escape its fate. Only if we submit to the life course God destined for us can we get real release and freedom. Knowledge and academic degrees appear so fragile in front of the fate. Many people who have high degrees cannot find a well-paid job all along while many ordinary people live a happy life. Can man really control his own fate? Think back to Job’s life. He didn’t fight for the lost property nor did he take pleasure in regaining the property. He knew in his heart that everything is controlled and arranged by God, that nothing can be forcibly obtained by man, and that only if he truly submitted under God’s sovereignty and arrangement could he have a happy life. At last, he lived his life in God’s blessings and died full of days. If we can really know these, we can see clearly the meaning and value of life and give our children back their free youth.
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