They are the Future
Children are the future. Who hasn’t heard this statement before?
But while some of us are wondering what kind of future might await our children in times of climate change, I started wondering about the challenges which our children must deal with in the present. And when I am mentioning challenges, then I am referring to those that they are quite often experiencing at home, and which are coming from their parents.
I am a child from the countryside, and my parents were even running a farm. Okay, when someone was working so hard to be part of the high financial industry in London and New York, then this is usually not part of the introduction in a job interview. But while I was deeply aware that the competitors for jobs at the investment banks had quite often certain advantages, I also understood that their perfect upbringing came with certain disadvantages.
Yes, most of them were presented with expensive watches after their graduation from prestigious business schools, which their proud fathers had already attended. But sometimes they lacked a certain ambition and ability to work hard, really, really hard. That was a skill, which I was taught by my late father from a very early age on the fields of our farm and of course, a strong will to survive in this life.
When I decided to start a family and chances were high that I would be a single parent, I was wondering what kind of tools and structure I could use to provide my children with a happy and successful life. I think that most parents are trying the best they could for their kids and I chose a good education and the arts, which I felt so passionate about.
I was proud when my daughter was accepted by the prestigious Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School, which is part of the American Ballet Theater in New York, when she was just 3 years old. Isabela would stay for 6 years and picked up the discipline, which still helps her in her life nowadays.
When she learns that a math test is coming up, she starts studying right away, and while she is currently learning 4 languages in 6th grade at the German School in Barcelona, she rarely asks me for help with her vocabulary and instead prefers me watching chick flick movies with her. Last night was no exception.
But while I am working two jobs and studying for a doctoral degree so that I can offer my children a good education, I feel quite often that some parents keep pushing their children in a very aggressive way without even asking if they are actually happy and enjoy what they are doing. Let me share some examples…
My daughter stayed with American Ballet Theater until she was 9 years old. When we moved to Germany, she explained to me that she didn’t want to continue with ballet and I accepted that. She got taller at that time, and we also didn’t have a prestigious ballet school in Hannover. I think she left ballet at a good time in her life, when the children had classes twice a week. The ballet classes were still fun, which also included an annual exam and a report at the end of the year. Isabela finished with a 94% score and left ABT on a high note.
But while she picked up volleyball as an afterschool activity at the German School in Barcelona and enjoyed practicing and competing with her friends, other children were not that lucky. There are parents who decided to send their children to the Russian Ballet School 6 days a week and don’t even notice, when their daughters are developing eating disorders since ballet comes with a certain pressure to be thin.
Other ambitious parents send their children to swimming or tennis classes 6 days a week and believe that they are raising future participants of the Olympics. They are dreaming about fame and fortune and pushing their children to the limit since they expect them to perform well in all areas of life.
Those parents are quite often trying to relive their childhoods and youth through their children and don’t want them to miss out on the opportunities which they didn’t have on their own. But they quite often also forget to ask them, if this is what they actually want from their childhood and youth.
And then we hear about parents, who are sending their kids to AI camps in China. They are thrilled because their kids are practicing martial arts with robots instead of other children. This makes me want to throw up the Spanish Omelet, which I had earlier for breakfast today. We live in a time when most parents are trying to limit the time which our kids spend on phones, iPads and laptops. Therefore, I struggle to understand why some parents raise little robots with a lack of emotional and social skills instead of letting them participate in something, which I called the real world in my last article on Building Bridges.
I want to be honest; when I am working two jobs so that my children can attend the German School in Barcelona then I expect them to have good grades. But I also have trust in my children and notice that they are highly motivated. Last week I was in Hannover, Germany for one night and asked my daughter yesterday, if she has studied enough for her upcoming Spanish, German and Math tests. She made clear that she did and that I should know that since I saw her studying for the last weeks.
I think sometimes we need to have trust in our children that they will not just do well in their upcoming math test but also in life. And sometimes it cannot hurt to remind ourselves that our children deserve the right to a proper childhood and youth the way we did, when we were running laughing and carefree over the fields of my parents’ farm.
I hope you enjoyed this article. Please drop me a line, if you are interested in joining our next movie club event on Sunday November 1st, 2026 and don’t miss out on the opportunity to make a small donation for “Save the Children Catalunya”, if you feel like doing so.