We expect the younger generation to be physically fit, mentally sound and morally on the right side. These are fair expectations. But are we giving them the right environment for this? Consider what a child sees at home.
Take rules. A child in the back seat watches a parent jump a red light. The child is asked to tell a caller that papa is not at home. The family skips a queue because someone knows someone. After this, no amount of advice on honesty will carry much weight. The child learns that rules are meant for others, and that cutting corners is a sign of being smart.
Then there is the habit of criticism. If parents keep finding fault with relatives, neighbours, colleagues and their superiors at work, the child picks up the same habit and turns it on teachers, the school and friends. A teacher is then no longer a guru but merely an employee of the school, someone to find fault with. And when such a child does not do well, the instinct is not to work harder but to please the teacher in some other way, perhaps with a gift. The lesson learnt is that results can be managed rather than earned.
The same holds for health. If the tiffin is the same paratha and pickle day after day, or there is no tiffin at all and only money for the canteen, the child will slowly move to chips, noodles and fried snacks. The parents then complain that the child does not eat nutritious food and lives on junk. But the child did not choose the canteen. That choice was made at home, on a busy morning when packing a proper tiffin felt like one task too many.
The good news is that this works the other way too. A child who sees parents keep their word, speak well of others and eat sensibly will pick that up just as easily.
In short, the child picks up habits from home, and those habits stay for life. So when we find a child cutting corners, running down teachers or living on junk food, the question "who is to be blamed?" deserves an honest answer. More often than not, the answer lies closer to home than we would like to admit.