Indoctrination of children?

More on parenting. I was actually quite taken by Dawkin's argument that there should be no religious indoctrination by parents. I'm not going to elaborate more, largely because I think that anyone who reads this blog is intelligent enough to extrapolate the implications of such a philosophy in this country. I don't like the idea of jail. But what got me thinking wasn't so much the religious imprinting that parents leave on their children. I started wondering about the other values that parents leave on their children.

Two very prominent examples exist for me, one potentially defensible, the other just some biased rant.

The first is racial bigotry. I think this is the most dangerous form of imprinting currently being practiced by Malaysians. I cringe every time a group of Chinese sit down and get talking about politics and eventually start agreeing with each other how lazy all Malays are. Or when the Malays start talking about how the Chinese are always plotting against them, and how the pork eating infidels deserve to die. Or when the Indians are generalized as a bunch of drunkards. I have a very strong suspicion that most of the venom spewed out by the younger generation is just an updated version of the evil that they heard over the coffee table during their parents' gatherings. In the face of such racism, I'm not sure if we ever can truly consider Malaysia to be a truly racially integrated society. The ideas of racial supremacy is likely to be perpetuated through the generations.

The second is self destructive behaviour that cannot be justified. I'm going to use a personal example. I think you might be able to find your own experiences using the same idea.

My mum had an aunt that was incredibly house proud. Her standards were insanely high, and there really isn't any reason for such levels of devotion to cleanliness. The question of what can be considered acceptable levels of cleanliness is in itself debatable and I'm not going to go into that too much. I personally think that if a place doesn't make people sick, then its clean enough. If you want it to be any cleaner, thats your prerogative. It cannot be made into some universal standard of acceptable cleanliness.

But my mum was made to live to such standards. Admittedly, my mum would be considered sloppy by the Aunt's standards. The pressures of a working life does force some compromise. But by my standards, its still a bit nutty.

It might seem like a petty gripe. I have a lot of petty gripes, and most are not blog worthy. But this one isn't petty. My mum is almost religiously devoted to keeping those standards, and its scary. Nothing else matters, not her quality of life, not her health. Even when she is dead tired, the scheduled cleaning must go on. Occasional deviations from the usual cleaning to do something fun is unheard of. The minimum standard takes top priority, and whenever I challenge her to explain why it should be so important, I get brushed away.

There is no explanation. Its cultural indoctrination, and till now, I slightly resent that aunt for imprinting my mum with such a mindset.

I'm not saying that parents shouldn't teach their children their values. Its just that sometimes doing that can be dangerous.

And yes, parents are not perfect. No, we shouldn't have to bow to their every whim in the name of filial piety. Respect must be accorded to them, but the line has to be drawn somewhere. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and when filial piety gives them the power to dictate all terms without having to be held accountable, there is way too much room for abuse of power, be it a conscious decision or not. (The last paragraph is pretty much unrelated to the bulk of the post. It is meant for you people who think that parents should not have to answer to their children, no matter what they do. You know who you are.)