Rain, rain, come again!

Express Tribune

6 days ago

An honest audit of modern parenting might leave most of us sweating - if not fainting. Our children are growing up in comfort, glued to screens, cocooned in air-conditioned rooms and cars - safe, perhaps, but slowly disconnected from the world outside. In shielding them, we may be silently stripping them of resilience. And sometimes, children don't inherit our values - they inherit our blind spots. The result? A troubling rise in youth violence, intolerance, and even cruelty towards animals.
The absence of outdoor play, meaningful socialising and physical activity doesn't just shape inactive bodies - it shapes anxious minds. These days, weekends are often spent in fancy malls, where kids walk around just looking at things, eating junk food, having sugary desserts and buying stuff they don't really need - just to pass the time.
There was a time, not too long ago, when happiness came from simple things: making paper boats in rainwater, cracking peanuts between doors, or a Sunday phone call that brought the whole family together. Childhood wasn't shaped by screens or edited with filters. It was real, full of small, meaningful moments.
Growing up, our lives were filled with tactile joys. We played chhupan chhupai (hide and seek) in corridors and courtyards, hosted musical chairs on birthdays, and ran in wild anticipation during scavenger hunts. The thrill of blowing bubbles through soapy rings, the collective giggles while messing up freshly ironed clothes - it was in these moments that we truly lived. Our rooftops were arenas for Basant battles, where brothers proudly displayed their kite collections, and sisters wore yellow with pride. Everyone would sleep on the rooftops with only one fan, thinking about the 'granny' spinning the wheel on the moon!
"My khala would visit every alternate Sunday just to speak to her son studying in Russia. With no landline at her place, the trip to our home became a celebration. Karachi-style biryani was cooked, cousins gathered, and all of us waited in eager anticipation for that five-minute international call," recalls a fellow, currently working in a public-sector university and living with her family, having two kids. Today, a video call is a swipe away, yet connection feels further than ever.
Nature was our playground. We didn't need virtual reality because reality itself was immersive. Fireflies lit up our nights. Butterflies adorned our gardens. Rain wasn't an inconvenience - it was a festival. We'd float paper boats and get drenched without worry. And the scent of wet earth? It was a kind of perfume the soul remembers. Our winters weren't complete without chilghoza and roasted peanuts, cracked and shared among siblings and cousins. The simple joys of peeling a pistachio or collecting fallen leaves - these were rituals that grounded us in the world around us.
Now, that world seems to be slipping through our fingers.
Children today are growing up in an era where rooftops are inaccessible, stars are invisible behind city lights, and nature is just a wallpaper on a phone. They have bubble guns instead of soapy containers and ringed sticks. They swipe through screens rather than chase fireflies or build miniature homes out of sand and cement on rooftops, like my brother once did. Gudda-Guddi ki shadi has been replaced by algorithm-driven video content. And the art of letter-writing, of saving Eid cards or scribbled poetry from a friend, is fading into oblivion.
What we are witnessing is not just a generational shift - it's a slow, silent disconnection from nature, from community, from gratitude. Children today feel more entitled but less thankful. They're connected to the world, yet isolated from their own.
Let's not raise a generation that knows the value of everything but the joy of nothing. Let's ensure that the next time it rains, a child somewhere floats a paper boat - not just for nostalgia, but to remember what it feels like to be truly alive.