From an early age we dote on them. They are the jewels of our existence and woe betide anyone who criticises them.

There is not a single doubt that Maltese parents make their children the centre of their lives.

To every object they ask for, the word “No” does not enter our vocabulary. If some day a parent dares show any anger towards their offspring, there is always a grandfather or grandmother willing to comply with their wishes.

Honest to God, I don’t believe that we give in to our children for the sake of keeping up with the Joneses but because of a deep and profound love for them, because their happiness is more important to us than anything on earth. Oh my, whoever came up with the proverb “Spare the rod and spoil the child” deserves the Pulitzer prize!

From when they are tiny tots, we over-protect them. While they are growing up we feed them false stories of how life is a bed of roses, that no storms will befall them but they will face calm seas throughout their lives.

Oh how wrong we are! Without knowing it, we are harming our children, albeit unknowingly. In today’s world I hear the same complaints from parents – usually it is the same “song” over and over again.

“I did so much for him,” or even more common: “I would have done anything for her.”

Experience has taught me that this is where we have failed as parents.

At a tender age, we allow our children to believe that we are always going to be there to clean up any “mess” they might make, but when they grow up and get too hard to handle and therefore we cannot get through to them anymore, they fly off the handle and rebel – causing us ultimate pain and sorrow.

I think one of the problems of Maltese parents is that we spoil our children far too much; in our eyes, they are small gods whom we relish, adoring to no limits.

Today’s children are into drugs, alcohol and sex, because they are so used to getting what they want that they believe they can get away with anything.

They believe that since mummy and daddy made them happy, the world owes them the right to do what they want, even at the expense of hurting others in the process.

Every day the newspapers recount missing children and thefts and other criminal acts committed by the young.

Do their parents point guns at their heads to make them behave like this? Surely not, but sometimes, due to the undying love we have for them, we allow them to grow up spoilt, selfish and as arrogant as can be. In the end, the poor victims are the parents who did all they could in the name of love.

No wonder that, in the war years, the young grew up to be fine gentlemen and proper ladies. They had little to be happy about but happy they were.

Today’s kids have everything, yet they are forlorn and miserable.

For sure the young ones of today are a far cry from Cliff Richard’s young ones.

Valerie Borg

MLP councilor Valletta