Osho Quotes on Parents

• Each child is made neurotic by the parents, by the society; and we know that we are doing it, and we know that others have done the same to us. Stop doing it to yourself and stop doing it to others. Become alert. Just be real. I emphasize reality more than truth. Because truth has been used by the anti-life people so much, it has wrong associations. Be real. If you are real, one thing will start disappearing from your heart, and that is guilt.
   

• Parents appreciate the child who agrees; they condemn the child who disagrees.
   

• Every child is so helpless -- just to survive he has to be political, he has to accept whatsoever the parents are saying.
   

• The parents have to learn that the child should not be insulted, humiliated, condemned. If you want to help him, love him more. Appreciate what is good in him rather than emphasizing what is bad. Talk about his goodness. Let the whole neighborhood know how nice and beautiful a boy he is. You may be able to shift his energy from the bad side to the good side, from the dark side to the lighted side, because you will make him aware that this is the way to get respect, this is the way to be honored. And you will prevent him from doing anything that makes him fall down in people's eyes.
   

• Every child has to disobey the father. Unless a child disobeys the father he never becomes mature. It is nothing, original, it is very simple and natural. It is very psychological. There comes an age when every child has to say NO to the parents. If he does not say no to the parents he will not have a spine; he will be spineless. If he cannot say no to the parents, he will be a slave his whole life. He will never attain to individuality.
   

• Every child is simple, just a clean slate. Then the parents start writing on his slate -- what he has to become. Then the teachers, the priests, the leaders -- they all go on emphasizing that you have to become somebody; otherwise, you have wasted your life. Just the opposite is the case. You are a being. You need not become anybody else. That is the meaning of simplicity: remaining at ease with one's being, and not going on any track of becoming -- which is unending.
   

• If you are born in a Hindu family your parents will start teaching you that you are a Hindu. Now they are creating a hypnotic state. Nobody is a Hindu -- but this child is innocent, he can be befooled. This child is simple. He will believe the parents, that he is a Hindu -- not only a Hindu, but a brahmin, not only a brahmin, but a deshastha brahmin. Sects within sects, just like Chinese boxes -- boxes within boxes. And the more he becomes narrowed, the more he becomes a prisoner. The box goes on getting smaller and smaller. He was just like the sky when he was born. Then he became a Hindu, a smaller box; then he became a brahmin -- a smaller box; then he became a Deshastha -- an even smaller box.
   

• Freedom is the basic thing. Consciousness grows in freedom and starts dying, becomes paralyzed and crippled, when things are forced. And up to now, this has been done. This is the greatest crime that parents have always committed against children. They go on forcing the child.
   

• The world is not religious because religion is imposed upon us. The parents are in a hurry to impose; the church, the state, the country -- everybody is in a hurry to impose a certain religion on the child. How foolish! How stupid! Religion needs maturity, great understanding, before one can choose.
   

• Every child is born with tremendous love for himself. It is the society that destroys that love, it is the religion that destroys that love -- because if a child goes on growing in loving himself, who is going to love Jesus Christ? Who is going to love the president, Ronald Reagan? Who is going to love the parents?
   

• The parents, the society, the state, the church, the educational system, they all depend on lies. As the child is born they start trapping it into lies. And the child is helpless. He cannot escape his parents, he is utterly dependent. You can exploit his dependence...and it has been exploited down the ages.
   

• If parents are really wise they will create opportunities for the children to say no -- and beautiful opportunities. Right now, unknowingly, they give ugly opportunities. For example, you say to the child, "Don't smoke cigarettes." This is an ugly opportunity because the child WILL smoke -- you have tempted the child to smoke cigarettes. You should have told him something better -- "Don't go out in the sun. Don't climb the tree." But you say to the children, "Don't eat ice cream." You should say to them, "Don't eat fruit" -- that will be a wise temptation! "Eat as much ice cream as you want, but don't eat fruit." Give them such a temptation as leads them to say no to you but does not harm their lives; otherwise they will remain deformed their whole lives.
   

• No child is born with an inferiority complex. It is the parents, the teachers, the priests, the society, the culture, which are responsible for creating the inferiority complex in the child. And the only way for the child to get rid of it seems to be to prove himself worthy according to the expectations of others. It creates a very miserable situation. He is not growing towards his own potential, he is following guidelines given by others. He will become somebody else that he was not by his nature supposed to be. He will never be happy; misery is going to be his lot. He may be able to assert himself; he may not be able to prove he is worthy, or he may be able to prove he is -- whatever the case, misery is going to be the end result.
   

• Don't teach the child the politics of religion. Leave him intact, alone, but give him an opportunity, a milieu, an atmosphere, a climate where he can feel in touch with what religion is. Then he will be religious. He may not be a Christian, but that is pointless, that is meaningless. He may not be a Hindu, but he will be religious. But parents are more interested that the child should be a Christian -- he should follow the same foolishness that they have been following. The child should be a Hindu -- he should be corrupted in the same way they have been corrupted. The child should have an identity of belonging to some organization -- the same that they belong to. This is the politics of religion; it is not religion at all.