Death sparks online debate on parenting

KOLKATA: The death of Aabesh Dasgupta - murder or accident - has set off a war of words on social media over the dilemma of new-age parenting. If Friday was all about a post on how Aabesh had 'died' long before the July 23 birthday party, arguments in defence of parents, who have supposedly 'spoiled' their kids with liberal outlook, came thick and fast on Saturday.
On Saturday morning, a WhatsApp forward took on Friday's viral post by sarcastically attributing all the blame on society since that's how it has always been for all crime.Referring to Tagore's short story 'Shasthi', the message said there, too, society was to be blamed for the murder of Borobou. So was it for the death of Nirupama in Tagore's 'Dena Paona'. "How can you open a liquor shop and not take blame for a child's murder?" the message poster wondered.
On Facebook, advertising professional Moeinuk Sengupta took on Friday's viral post blaming parents, saying: "While no one knows exactly what has happened, the FB 'guardians' of the Bong culture are out with a verdict. It is said he had died long ago because he never saw sunrise, never read 'Thakurmar Jhuli', never saw the stars and moon and because he got 1800 bucks from his parents to spend on a friend's birthday. Some even say that he died because his parents didn't spend time with him. The nugget about Rs 1800 was the clincher."
According to Sengupta, this war has now turned into a "class fight": "The Rs 1800 figure told these moral guardians that somebody has more money to spend than them. And out poured the envy that stereotyped affluence with parental negligence, dishonesty, apathy to nature and Bengali literature."
Another section is digging into Aabesh's Facebook posts to point at his flaws. According to them, if parents are more aware about what children are doing, many untoward incidents can be prevented.
To substantiate this, they refer to Aabesh's Facebook post dated January 9 when he mentioned how his grandmother had "abused him". On January 15, 2015, he had shared a WhatsApp from his 'grandad' in 'heaven'. "Tell your friends to stop drinking and sinning so much," read one such imaginary chat. In the conversations that followed, one boy wrote: "For Aabesh, a friend in need is a friend with weed". Aabesh, however, protested the assumption.
Percussionist Subhen Chatterjee, a father of two and who has played an active part in Fight for Aabesh campaign, said, "Even if Aabesh had some not-so-good habits, it cannot justify his death. There is a motive behind his character assassination and that of the other children."
Clinical psychological Seema Hingorany insists that while intrusion into privacy isn't good, monitoring is important. "It helps parents to pick up signs of children being in bad company. These days, I see children of hyper parents turning stubborn. Counselling is extremely important," she said.
Hingorany added that good parenting skill requires day-to-day communication and an ability to draw the line. "Peer pressure has always been there. Parents must give emotional strength and security so that children can come back and tell them even if something is wrong," she said.