A few weeks ago, in a children's dance show, to my great relief, one of the judges shouted at the parents for dressing the children in clothes meant for adults
A few weeks ago, in a children's dance show, to my great relief, one of the judges shouted at the parents for dressing the children in clothes meant for adults. The clothes had plunging necklines and slits, like those worn in films by seductresses. These were children, innocent children, paraded by their very own parents in clothes that are a paedophile's delight. I watch the kids pucker their lips to kiss and wink at the camera and shake their hips and gyrate sexually. Do they know what they are doing? Do the parents know what these gestures suggest? Or is all forgiven when it is on television?
As I watch children joyfully dancing and singing to win competitions, and eager parents clapping from the sidelines, I wonder who is actually benefitting from this competition. The children or the parents? Or the audience? Yes, the audience is being entertained and the children seem to be enjoying themselves. But there is the stress of winning. Did a little girl not kill herself a few months ago when she was disqualified from one of these competitions? Do we want to expose children to the rat race so early in life? I have a suspicion that the children are actually surrogates for their parents' ambitions.
The story of children being exploited by their parents finds resonance in the story of Sunahshepa whose story is chronicled in the Puranas. It was a time of famine. The local king was looking for a human sacrificial victim.
The father said, "My eldest son is dear to me and my youngest son is dear to his mother. But I have a third son, Sunahshepa, neither eldest nor youngest, that you make take as sacrifice, provided you give me a thousand cows. I am desperate and I have no option but to sell my son." The king gave the poor man the cows and took the son away. 
But the Rishis refused to sacrifice a human being. "This is unacceptable," they said. But the king had to sacrifice a human for he had made a promise to the gods. So he announced that he would give a thousand cows to anyone who would was willing to sever Sunahshepa's neck from his body at the sacrificial altar.
"I will do it," said a man. The king and the Rishis and Sunahshepa turned around to see who it was. It was the father. Sunahshepa wept. This time the excuse was not need. It was greed. He was the offering.
As children, we are taught that parents love their children. But is it always true? Parents are human beings too and susceptible to all human emotions, including greed. Many parents believe that their children will achieve what they did not. They transform their children into crutches for their own insecurities and fears. Through the child, they wish to conquer the world. The child then becomes a tool, a lever, to move ahead in the world. Love then turns into exploitation. The parent says, "I am doing it for my child's future." The child is transformed into a cow to be milked. And since obedience is a virtue, like Sunahshepa, the child in all innocence, simply surrenders, wears the revealing clothes and dances on stage.
Devdutt Pattanaik is a Mumbai-based mythologist who makes sacred stories, symbols and rituals relevant to modern times.u00a0
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