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Osho says, 

"The class of children is the most harmed, oppressed, exploited, distorted class of all classes...and the most helpless."

The idea that personal freedoms are being infringed on such a colossal scale is a startling thought. Osho is not speaking of child labour, or child prostitution. He is speaking about ordinary children in ordinary homes. How would you like it if you were treated like a possession, not trusted or respected, and your life was exploited? It sounds awful.

Most children are in just that situation. Most parents believe children are born to be reformed. That is to say they have to be turned in acceptable citizens. All the world's parents take it for granted that unless they do this for their children, those children will not succeed. This ancient attitude is so much under our nose that we never question it.

I think that most of us, if we are honest, will remember times when we felt ill done by as children. How we were obliged to accept things that went against our natural inclination. We had no option but to surrender. Our parents were everything to us. We needed their love, shelter and food. We loved them totally and accepted everything. 

Still it was upsetting when, proud of our ability to talk, we were told, "shut up". It seemed odd to be told, "Say thank you" even though we didn't feel grateful. It was strange to discover that everything between our knees and our navel was considered unmentionable and must always be covered. It was horrible to be unjustly punished. Most of us could add to these examples. We accepted, what else could we do? 

I mention the events that most of us remember in some way or other, but the trouble starts long before that. We are born clean, unmarked -- sensitive to every impression. Every incoming impression left a trace. Every trace remained to modify the next impression. Nothing was too small or too unimportant to be recorded. Who can say what the effect of a super efficient birth in a modern hospital has on the new-born? Certainly the baby doesn't consciously remember the slap on the back and the drops in the eyes as disrespectful. We can't remember what effect the television had, or what the sound of our parents quarrelling did to us.

Over the years the examples of mistrust, the lack of respect -- the simple rudeness -- build up. Children learn that their parents are inconsistent, that they can be managed. The love and dependence remains, but the respect begins to diminish. Everyone with a question about life will remember how and to what degree these things happened to him or her.

What is certain is that many children give up trying to conform; they rebel. Parents don't see it like that. They wonder why their child has suddenly started refusing his food at meal times. Why the child has become secretive, or starts thieving, to mention only a couple of the myriad ways that children have to show their resentment and anger. If you ask a child why they are angry, they can't tell you because the origins go way back, before speech.

Parents want their children to be a credit to them. Parents believe that children owe them obedience and respect. They really believe that unless they give their children values and standards the children will fail. Their position as parents is powerful enough for them to be able to insist. When you come right down to it, it is nothing less than an exploitation of the child's natural innocence. It is exploitation because children do not need all these "do's and don'ts." Their natural, God-given intelligence and sensitivity is more than enough.

"Education is to give you inner richness. It is not just to make you more informed; that is a very primitive idea of education. I call it primitive because it is rooted in fear, rooted in the idea that 'If I am not well educated I will not be able to survive'. I call it primitive because deep down it is very violent: it teaches you competition, it makes you ambitious. It is nothing but a preparation for a cut-throat, competitive world where everybody is the enemy of everybody else."
Osho

Animals are born instinctively perfect. They have no future. Man is born as a seed, as a potential. Man has a future. Education is the bridge between the seed and the possibility. Life has provided each child with the means to achieve it's potential so long as it is fed and sheltered.  

In times long gone, childhood as we have it was unknown. As soon as a boy was able, he helped his father in the workshop learning his father's trade. A daughter would help her mother and learn her household skills. In those days children were needed. Parents gave them their education. Although strictly speaking exploitation existed, it was not the disaster we have today. The children got value from their parents. Parents were respected if only for their work and the skills they passed on.

The industrial revolution, which began to take the work place away from the family, changed everything. Today, children's education is totally removed from parents. The media, schools, and other children may have greater influence. Parents have no skills to teach their children and the love they offer is as conditional as ever. The situation for children is so bad that extreme examples have made child rapists, muggers, even murderers a commonplace. 

Most people still think in terms of family and many believe it can be redeemed. The truth is that the family is in trouble. There is no way back. Alternatives like communes have already begun to emerge.

The rate of change in the world is continuing, probably accelerating. Cloning is happening; genetically engineered babies are on the way. Digital television and the Internet are here. It is quite impractical to ask our children to have an opinion on these modern miracles on the basis of the old values. They need to be allowed to form their own value systems. Their responsibility should be the ability to respond to every situation from their own, natural, intelligence.

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