Why does a society go to Hell?

Pratiti Shirin writes for DOT : 
You wonder why your child doesn’t study? Why they watch TV all day long? Or why they are smartphone-addicted? Well, when was the last time you ever read a book; did not watch TV and used a normal phone which is not a smartphone? Never? Then stop judging your children and judge yourself first.
Studies reveal that contrary to popular belief, it is not the teacher but a parent whom a child learns mostly from. And the foundations of what type a person a child will grow up to be, are formed in the first five years of a person’s life. So, if I am not reading books; facebooking and watching TV all the time; my child will do the same. If I am partying all night long; smoking and drinking; there is no reason to think that my children will do otherwise. After all, I am the one and only most influential person in their life before they start school and sometimes, even afterwards.
We have read about Oishee or the son of the owner of Apan Jewellers. The first has been given lifetime imprisonment for murdering her parents and the second was jailed for rape. Both were also drug addicts. We have wondered what kind of an upbringing they received but pondering  is not enough. Oishee or Safat Ahmeds are not exceptions. There are thousands of them in making in our current social set-up where money and social status matter more than the well being of our children: the reason we are afraid to use a normal phone at home, if not at work. After all, only our maid uses one as such. Even if my children are watching porn and facebooking and sexting, who cares as long as my social status is maintained? What will people say if they find out I am using a normal phone and not a smartphone? I must be out of my mind to be thinking so. I have to maintain my society; be ‘elite’ and party away the night with alcohol and cigarettes and yaba and still expect my children to do not the same. I am a corrupt businessman who keeps three/four women outside home where I rarely come if ever and still expect my children to grow up as honest human beings. This is the paradox of human life. Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, the world’s biggest software company, gave his children a gadget-free childhood, knowing better than perhaps no other person on this planet, about the dark impact computers can have on young, impressionable minds.
Yes there is a shortage of playgrounds in urban Dhaka but why not have regular family outings on weekends away from Dhaka? Why not introduce your children to the trees and birds that are just a short drive away? Why not just spend time with them playing ludo and carom at home the old-fashioned way? Why not encourage them to pursue an interest or a hobby? Why not teach them to do something for children from deprived backgrounds or for the elderly? Why not teach them that more than obtaining a GPA 5 (failure to get which results in suicides by children every year), it is more important to have inner peace. Our education system too is at fault for creating monsters rather than human beings by pushing children into an unhealthy competition with each other from a very early age. Why not teach them to embrace failure; why not teach them that not everyone is destined to be an Einstein or a Picasso or a Mozart? But even then, it is possible to be happy if one’s emotional quotient is high.Feeling empathy towards a fellow human being or an animal can guarantee inner happiness but a high GPA, neither inner happiness and nor even professional success many times and certainly not, a high IQ. Only then, our society and its children will stop going to hell. Metaphorically and literally. Only then will we not wonder what’s wrong with our children.
If you want to see social change, change yourself first.
The writer is an Assistant Professor, Department of English, University of Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh. She can be reached at pratshirin85@du.ac.bd.