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Teaching rights and responsibilities to children

Recently I was talking to a government officer who was insisting on having a scavenger for a government children’s home to clean the toilets and he even insisted that Gandhian thoughts like cleaning one’s own toilet in a government children’s home would be considered as child labor.

I couldn’t disagree more. As a father of two girls it was a joy to do their self-care activities when they were young but as they started growing up, gradually they were introduced to taking care of their own needs. For example, girls play with their toys all evening and they expect mom to put them all away at the end of the day. It doesn’t work like that. When they can play with toys and put them away, we insist that they put them away. It took a while for them to get the hang of it but once they learnt that what they use ought to be valued and protected it was very easy.

I don’t see much of a difference between my girls in my house and the children in a government home as far as teaching them their responsibilities. Unless and until we adults teach them the concept of responsibility now, it would be impossible to teach the same concept to them at a later stage of their life.

Definition of ‘Child Labor’ is hiring a child to do the work for a payment. Teaching responsibilities no way violates the rights of a child.

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