Today's Youth Search for Love

Why does he seem to search for love out side of his home? He thirst for love and affection, care and proper guidance, attention, and material things - these are all symbols of his youth. These are the same motivations he has desired since infancy. The love and caring a baby receives from his mother is how he attaches to his mother and his family - his natural thirsts are fulfilled.

The family should be a home's building blocks. The home should be built around love and peace, joys and sorrows, kindness and caring. Therefore, his home will be the destination where his thirst is satisfied.

Initially, when he returned home from school, he was very happy indeed, because of the love he knows awaited him from his mother or other family member. He had amity and fellowship with his home and everything related to it. From every part of the home the feeling of love, happiness, joy, and excitement radiated.

But what has happened to that amity and fellowship of his home? Conditions differ in the materialistic era of today. These days his parents don't give him proper company. They pursue their own self-interest and don't have time for him, and as a result he joins the company of others.

Things weren't so serious ten years back. It seems the change has come within the last two to three years. This same youth, who once found contentment at home, now searches for love outside of his home. He looks to mates, friends, others' company, and teachers to quench his thirst. If he is not careful, his search can stir up generation-gap problems with his parents, as well as lead to immoral activities.

He like other youth starts to make friendships over the Internet (the phobia of our youth). Youth mobs or friendships of the opposite sex, it doesn't matter if they know each other or not, or whether they are sincere or not. Because of bad luck, he may be led down the wrong path. There are many other things he could join owing to lack of attention from his home.

Indeed this disease, the thirst for parental love, has become very serious. It spreads owing to lack of concentration of parents at home especially toward youth nourishment. Children are the bargain for their parents. When parents return from their jobs, they should have a sitting with them. But due to hard work of a whole day, they are so tired that they refuse to sit. That's the act of demarcation from where youth comes out from their home in search of company and love. This thing is not good for the future of any child or his moral character.

We are not too far from disaster. If the conditions remain the same, we might lose our youth and their devotedness. Hence, parents now should start awareness of their responsibility. They are the managers of their homes; the youth can run the way they drive.

"The time parents spend on earning material things, if they spend it on proper nourishment of the child, it will give fruitful result."

Bilal X., 19
Karachi, Pakistan

* Reprinted from Positive Teens Magazine Volume 6 Issue 1, Jan/Feb 2004

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