Normal or restrained growth!

During a walk in a garden, I noticed many tall and majestic trees high up in the skyline, as seen in the first photo. 

I also noticed dwarfed trees like the one in the second photo, with large stem but made to stay stunted in vertical growth and spreading out, which was engineered to be that way. The plan was to stunt the growth.

The first tree has an uninhibited growth. The second has been de to have a controlled growth experience. 

Let me pick up a strand from the fabric of my thinking, ever since I noticed this phenomenon  three months ago. 

I know of families, organisations,  institutions, enterprises which have this contrasting stories. Some have spontaneous growth and the others remaining restrained. 

Those who remain restrained can be controlled by circumstances to stay so or choose to stay restricted to a pre-designated plan. 

I want to explore this further. 

I visited a family yesterday, whose two daughters are in two  distant places. One is married and the other is about to complete her studies. I was immensely impressed with the perspectives of the parents to dream for their daughters. They with a lower middle class heritage, could have chosen to give normal educational opportunities for their daughters. Instead, they allowed their children to reach heights that children chose to pursue. The parents did not restrain them from pursuing what was possible for them. The young daughter whom I met spoke delightfully about the prospects she sees for her future in the academic arena. 

As against this I do come across families who for various reasons fail to see the prospects of growth in their children. They condition them to fall in line with the trend around to 'educate them to get a good job'! This is materialistic and consumerist view of life, which restrain children from growing to their full stature. 

A driver of public transport told me recently, that he is now enrolled to complete his graduate course in sociology, as he was not given a chance to go to college after his school studies. His parents wanted him to be employed as soon he finished his schooling, much against his interest to study further ! This young man in his early thirties is wanting to be a teacher in a college, because he is interested in being with young people to give them an altruistic vision of life.  He said: 'The students study to pass an examination to get a job. They forget about a life they have before them in their home, family and society'!

In the first instance a family had a facilitating view to support their children to pursue their prospects educationally and developmentally. In the second instance, the family had a restraining control over their son, limiting him to their dwarfed view of his prospects. 

I remember my parents sending me away after completing my pre-degree course to Nagpur to study pre-medical course, much against my wish as I felt inhibited to go away without adequate skills in English or Hindi. They told me, that, in the profession of medicine 'you have an opportunity to serve others'. It was their dream which made me a doctor. Looking back over the fifty years since I became a medical doctor, what prevails within me is an overwhelming gratitude towards my parents who allowed my growth and development and led me to a path that went beyond my dream. 

The freedom to grow to the full potential versus controlling growth by restraining!

I have no quarrels with the science and art of miniature creations of trees and plants. They give us experiences and expressions of the authority given to man to 'subdue the earth'!

What disturbs me is, parents bring up children with a materialistic orientation of who they are to be educationally in a success driven market place, without envisioning a life of larger purpose for them!

I wish parents would have a vision for their children to be people who grow up with integrity, altruism, social consciousness, and spiritual awareness!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)