A broken promise

Lately, the educational assurance industry has been controversial. Many companies are in deep financial trouble and have become incapable of satisfying their obligations with their plan-holders. Parents are terrified to discover that the "assured" education of their children is not secure after all.

It is a very real need in our modern society that the educational pension system serves. Parents today are mostly out of the home to work. They have more income, but they are also more and more worried of how the kids will turn out to be, in their absence. Educational pension companies help appease parental apprehension and guilt. They provide assurance that, at least, the kids will get an education.

And, until recently, the industry had been quite reliable in its service. But, as we know, there is no totally foolproof human system. Even institutions that are created to secure the future are not exempt from undesirable eventualities. The recent breakdown of the educational pension system is proof to this.

Companies are business ventures. Any business exists primarily for its own self-interests. Its services, no matter how perceivably necessary or noble, are only ways of attaining its own goals. In the final analysis, a business serves the interests of its customers only as a way of enticing the customer's money.

In other words, the customer only comes second. Parents should not think they are putting their children first place by entrusting the kids' future to some heartless, unfeeling juridical being, like an educational pension company, whose very existence is defined by its own self-interests. No business can be expected to serve its customers from the heart-it does not have one.

The only truly reliable guarantee for the children's well-being is positive parental influence. It is in the nature of parents to try to ensure the best for their children. No educational pension company or educational institution can ever come close to the purity of parental intentions. Many parents feel that buying an educational plan, and thereby being able to send the kids to school, somehow absolves them of the responsibility of child-rearing. Not quite so.

Investing in an educational plan for the kids is good, as is sending them to a good school. But, of and by itself, this is not what parenthood is truly about. True parenthood is basically about imparting wisdom in the children. It is about devoting time for teaching young people the right attitudes and values, to make them decent, responsible and capable people. Then the young ones can make a good life on their own.

Many parents fully entrust their children's formation to social institutions-like schools, for instance-because they doubt their own capacity for making a positive impact on their young. They are unsure of whether they have anything of themselves that is valuable enough to share. They find some inanimate entities, instead, to be more trustworthy for the job.

The act of having children implies an essential parental pledge-to produce new members of the human family and assume the responsibility of raising them well. This moral tradition serves not only to comply with the duty of procreation but also to bring the process of human development to the next level. This pledge shall never be broken.

There is no reason whatsoever for parents to waive their wonderful privilege of shaping young lives. All they need is an honest reflection of their own life experience, of why they believe some things to be good and others bad. Their wisdom is enough to wield a penetrating spiritual influence upon their children. They don't need to be perfect people. Their own loving instinct will compensate for any shortage in knowledge.

Parents are the kids' natural teachers. With nurturing parental affection, children will want to emulate their parents. They will build on the good legacy of their parents and avoid their mistakes. This way, each generation doesn't have to repeat the blunders of the past. This way, the mankind will be able to continually approach that state of collective perfection which is the ultimate purpose of this earthly life.