The Supreme Court’s gentle rebuke on Thursday could not have come at a better time. While hearing a child custody matter, Justices B V Nagarathna and R Mahadevan paused the legal arguments to ask a larger social question: why are we outsourcing parenting to music academies, art studios and taekwondo dojos?
“Instead of sending them to extra classes. That is how the bond will develop between the parents and the children,” Justice Nagarathna observed.
The point was not to dismiss extracurriculars as worthless. It was to remind us that no certificate in piano or black belt can substitute for a conversation at the dinner table.
We live in an age of anxiety-driven parenting. In cities and small towns alike, the calendar of a 10-year-old often looks like a corporate executives. School ends at 2, tuition at 4, music at 5:30, taekwondo at 7. The logic is simple and seductive. The world is competitive. Every other child is doing three classes. If mine does two, will he fall behind?
That logic has created a generation that is busy but not necessarily close to its parents. We measure development in badges and recitals, and forget to measure it in manners, empathy and the ability to sit with discomfort and talk it out.
The Court’s reminder that boys especially need to be taught “how they should treat girls and women” is telling. That is not a skill taught in a 45-minute weekly class.
It is taught by watching how a father speaks to his wife, how a mother is heard, how disagreements are handled at home.
The advocate’s counter that classes help in all-around development is not wrong. Art teaches expression. Sport teaches discipline. Music teaches patience. But when these become a replacement for parental time, they also teach something unintended: that problems are solved by enrolling, not engaging. That attention can be bought by the hour.
Justice Nagarathna’s suggestion was disarmingly simple.
“Parents should just sit with them and talk to them. They will become better children; there will be better interaction. Instead of sending them to art class, music class, taekwondo, something else. Instead of that, you take a class with your children.”
The phrase “take a class with your children” is worth holding onto. It reframes parenting as participation, not procurement.
This is not a call to cancel all activities. Children need peers, coaches, and spaces beyond home to grow. But the balance has tilted dangerously.
We have confused exposure with upbringing. A child who can do a roundhouse kick but cannot say sorry, or who can play a raga but cannot ask a parent how their day was, is not all-rounded. He is just well-scheduled.
The judgment also speaks to class and time. Not every parent can afford five classes. Not every parent has the luxury to come home early.
But talking costs nothing. Eating one meal together costs nothing. Asking about a friend, a fear, a failure costs nothing. That is where etiquette, values and emotional security are built.
Schools, too, must hear this. The pressure to produce “portfolio kids” starts in classrooms that celebrate trophies more than character. Parents pick up that anxiety and pass it on.
The Supreme Court was not laying down law here. It was offering common sense from the bench, and that may be its greatest value. In a country obsessed with outcomes, it asked us to look at process. At who is raising the child while we are busy raising the child’s resume.
Let us not treat this as another headline to scroll past. Tonight, instead of checking which class is next, check in. Ask one real question and wait for the real answer. No timer, no syllabus, no fee.
That, the Court seems to be saying, is the extra class our children need the most.
