A Critique on George Monbiotâs Article on: Aspirational Parents Condemn Their Children to A Desperate, Joyless Life
George Monbiotâs article talks about how children in the modern world face the pressures of complying with qualifications and acquiring skills as early as their toddler years. Parents often push their children to attend academic enrichment classes, ballet classes, sports training, or musical lessons. While this develops talents at a young age and benefits both the parents and the child, the effects resulting from the process may be disastrous for the young child. First, the author opens up about the decline in life conditions which ultimately pressures the young generation to be better than average to be able to live decently. Monbiot moves on to explain that society perpetuates into each and everyoneâs minds that one must strive to be an elite. Society influences individuals to aspire to become part of the elite community. According to society, true success is to become one of them. This also puts a heavy burden since becoming part of the elite is truly no menial task to be done. Parents try to ensure their childrenâs success by letting them start as early as possible in life which brings the author to his next point. According to Monbiot, childhood must be a time for innocence and play. However the trend nowadays is to let children start working hard early. It is as if there is no more time for play in their childhoods. This in turn affects the mental health of the youth. Many have become more depressed and prone to anxiety. George Monbiot ties his entire piece of text together by saying that perhaps by being hardworking all throughout childhood would ensure an elite lifestyle, but at what cost exactly? Childhood has become an exhausting and life-denying era instead of the once happy and best years in a personâs life.
The author aims to persuade readers, especially the parents of millennials and even millennials themselves, that chasing aspirations of becoming elite at the cost of oneâs childhood is not worth it. George Monbiot is a British writer known for being an activist in both politics and environmental issues. He voices out every week in a column for The Guardian. He took jobs at the BBC in the past, working in current affairs or as an investigative journalist where he encountered many unfortunate complications in obtaining a story. Among his best-known works are his description of an encounter with a police torturer in Brazil entitled Hunting the Beast and a book published in 2000 entitled Captive State: The Corporate Takeover of Britain.Â
The text shows information that proves his point, mostly utilizing logos and pathos in his claims. To support the idea that there is a decline in childrenâs mental health over the years, statistical data is introduced. It was shown that the number of children admitted to the hospital because of self-harm has risen by 68% in 10 years. Many other statistical data were shown as well. The many reliable statistical data really backed up Monbiotâs point about the sad reality of the mental health of children. In fact there was at least three of more statistical data mentioned. It gave hard evidence and proof which makes it difficult for naysayers to disagree upon. Furthermore, pathos was also used but not as much as logos. The author states lines such as âBut to what are we aspiring? A life that is better than our own, or worse?â and âFrom infancy to employment, this is a life-denying, love-denying mindset.â Both of these lines are not only rhetorical questions but also an appeal to the readersâ emotions. It sounded so sad to me when I read the latter. Life-denying and love-denying mindset just sounds so miserable. It clearly worked because I was convinced that this phenomenon is not good for the society. The author did not make use of ethos since he did mention anything regarding his credibility in the text itself. Â
The claims made by the author mostly included claims of value. Majority of the article is persuading readers to believe that parents with high aspirations will only yield overly pressured children with no chance of a proper and happy childhood. It is even mentioned in the title itself. The author would want readers to believe that this phenomenon of pressuring the youth is not good. It answers a question of morality. Moreover, the article gives supporting details to his claim. It gave the negative effects of overworking children such as mental health issues, lack of playtime during childhood, and the huge burden of pressures. Upon reading these claims, I did not find many fallacies in the authorâs reasoning. However, the author implies that the reason behind parents letting their children work hard at an early age is because their goal is to ensure their childrenâs chance of becoming successful in life. This is an oversimplification. Parents nowadays do want their children to become more successful in life, however it is not the only reason that they let their children go to enrichment classes or other classes. Parents may simply want their children to learn a skill. Parents may also want their children to develop their innate talents. True, the prime reason is for guarantee of success but it is not the only one.
Monbiot highlights the drastic measures parents are taking in order to guarantee a chance of success. Intertextuality is very evident in this work because Monbiot cites other works in this piece of text. One of these works is an article featured in the Financial Times about a new career called the nursery consultant. The nursery consultant is basically where parents go to ask for advice in choosing a nursery that would be better suited for their childâs development. It is to put their children on the right track. The same article also spoke of parents who let their two-year old daughter go to tutor for maths, literacy, reading, drama, piano, beginner French, and swimming. This article from Financial Times clearly gives examples which support the topic. In the second to the last paragraph, Monbiot also makes use of Izaak Waltonâs Compleat Angler (1653) by mentioning a description found in the book. Walton states that the fate of poor-rich men is that they âspend all their time first in getting, and next in anxious care to keep it; men that are condemned to be rich and then always busy or discontented.â This of course applies to the modern problem of everyone aspiring to be one of the richest elites. It even further backs up his point regarding the cost of being rich and if it is worth it in the end. The creative words lifted from the Compleat Angler aids a reader in understanding the main idea of the article even more so. Â Â Â Â
This article by George Monbiot is a strong and reliable article. Overall, it is a well-written article with strong evidence supporting each and every one of the claims made by the author. There were examples to help the readers visualize the idea. There were also many statistical data mentioned in the text. Moreover, it also mentioned other issues surrounding the topic. There is however one error found in the piece of text which is an oversimplification fallacy regarding the cause of parents pushing their children to work hard in their early stages. The rest of the article gave strong points and strong supporting details with regards to the main idea. Overall, this article is well-written and definitely would persuade a reader. I salute the author for this comprehensive work. Â Â
