Every year, many teenagers run away from home: what are the main causes?
Life can be a difficult proposition for a multitude of reasons. They may not always be justifiable or swept under the rug. Leading a life free of difficulties makes a person incapable of achieving the enormous success that we all desire. Nor do we choose the family into which we are born or the circumstances in which we are raised. However, having said that, the choices we make are ours and that is what defines and shapes our individuality.
A teenager gets the constant need for peer approval and is usually on a rebellious streak. Their self-confidence is always through the roof, while their self-esteem is often determined by others. This age is a solid age of inflection or transition from childhood to adulthood in which a teenager always wants to run away from reality instead of facing it head on. This era opens a Pandora’s Box of fears and conflicts that leads to a high degree of pessimism and fuels suicidal tendencies among some. Many often choose the path of flight. This may be due to a total disregard for reality, fear of being overwhelmed by expectations, or a search for greener pastures. This is not an exhaustive list, but it represents the main reasons why a teenager has the sudden need to run away from their home, their parents and her life.
Failures are known to spark such thoughts among teenagers. The thought of failing at something makes most of us cringe. However, one must realize that success and failure are two sides of the same coin and one must learn, to quote Rudyard Kipling,
“To treat these imposters the same way…”
The fear of failure arises due to the expectations that weigh on the individual. A parent can unknowingly place such a burden on a child, leading to fear of failure. Such expectations are also common among peers. Failure, leading to loss of prestige among society, is enough to torment the faint of heart. Each individual has a different, albeit specific, coping mechanism. For a veteran of failure, it’s another feather in the cap, but for a successful person, it can be a nightmare. It all comes down to one person’s limits. What one requires is a basic understanding that failure is an integral part of life and is not worth sacrificing and endangering the lives of oneself and others included.
Most adults understand that life is not a bed of roses. It has its own ups and downs, crests and valleys. But understanding and even more accepting this reality can be a challenge. Another major reason teens leave home is the absence of a supportive and hospitable environment. As said before, we cannot choose where or how we are born, it is something we all must deal with and learn to live with. For some, it is more difficult than for others. Imagine an abusive environment, ruled by poverty and violence, that reeked of gambling and alcohol and at the same time gave rise to domestic violence. Can a teenager deal with all of this at once? We have all heard of alcoholic parents who indulge in vile forms of abuse and violence. How long can such torture be tolerated? Once a boy enters adolescence, he realizes that running away will be his only option. These fugitives are escaping from their realities, although there is nothing wrong with this. There is no shame in escaping oppressed fortune for a hopefully pleasant future.
The world is full of examples of individuals who are never in sync. Conflict between parents and their children is one of the main reasons for the presence of runaways. Perhaps we have all had fights or skirmishes with our parents due to a clash of ideologies and the selfish nature of humans in general. Parents want what they think is best for the child and for the child to avoid making the same mistakes they did. Teenagers, on the other hand, are explorers and always looking for new identities. Conflicts can be as simple as the selection of subjects/sequences in high school or as complex as the selection of spouses, which is largely evident in India. Parents rarely approve of a child’s choices, assuming that the child (who is also a teenager) is incapable of making sound decisions. Such conflicts can give rise to animosity and feelings of ill will. This encourages young adults to run away from home to exercise their rights and live a life based on their own set of rules and principles.
We almost always assume that the reasons for fleeing are mostly pessimistic and result from conflict and miscommunication. However, a large part of the adolescents also flee in search of greener pastures. With the advent of television and mass media around the world, exposure to quirkiness and hope is just a few button presses away. Teenagers in very poor regions often have high hopes and dream big. In India, we see teenagers from even the most remote corners of the country flocking to metropolises like Mumbai to earn big bucks. Mumbai has always fueled teenage dreams of making it big in Bollywood. Even today’s industry is full of real life examples, Shah Rukh Khan being one of them.
Perhaps most teenagers who run away from home in search of a better standard of living fail miserably, but none achieved more success than the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi himself. Modi ran away from home and left his family in his pre-teens. His fascination with the RSS had started quite early, while his poverty and his non-consensual child marriage hadn’t helped either. Modi ran away from home to follow his dream of becoming an RSS pracharak only to end up as Prime Minister. His family was quite poor and he worked at his father’s tea stall. His humble origins are no secret. One of the main reasons for this bold step of his was perhaps being married, against his will, at a tender age. He is the best example of what drives teenagers away from their homes, symbolizing the conflict and high hopes also among today’s teenagers.
The biggest blame that can be pinned on the runaways rests with no one but the teens themselves. Of course, parents play an important role in generating conflicts and inhospitable conditions, but at the end of the day, it is the teenagers who must become increasingly accommodating, since one cannot be treated like a child forever and not grow up. it is an option. . Failures and conflicts are an integral part of life and recovering from them is the key. Perhaps the most justifiable reason for such escapism is the search for a better life. Successes may be few, failures many, but only those who persevere can seize the day.
