I believe that we are obliged to help these children learn what they want and then to help these kids build this future and return them their debts in such a way, that they come back to the ascendant life and live from "worse to better", now and here in Moldova. And that's possible! For the sake of our children everything is possible!"
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Lately, more and more often I’ve been asked to do mentoring.
The covered topics are different and include a large range of subjects from the career planning and professional growth to addressing deep personality crises. It's an interesting activity that allows me to connect with other people and get out of the "social bubble" – the social circle, were each of us actually, lives.
So, it happened that, in the last month, I have had about four different requests for mentorship from young people, from the 28-35 age group. I'm still going to call them children because they're my children's age and I've tried to be not only their mentor, but also some kind of adoptive mother for the short term. Everything that will be described below is part of a mentor’s personal observations.
How do 28-35 years agers live in Moldova?
Most children of this age in Moldova have a college diploma, and many of them are graduated even from two or three faculties. They speak at least three languages, some of them speak 5 and even 6 languages. Basically, three out of four children try to build their own business here in Moldova.
Business models are often copied from relatives or friends, not all the time they are perfect, sometimes even flawed, and often go bankrupt.
If business is good, they are strangled by bureaucracy, corruption or more influential competitors.
Most of these kids don't see a future here in Moldova and in their social circle they just talk about the fact that in the next 20 years here nothing will change. They think, that the ex-Soviet electorate is still strong and will only vote for archaic parties, however they don't want until they're 50 to live like this, so the only viable option for them is to go abroad.
How do children see an ideal day in their lives?
Basically, with each of these children I applied a simple exercise, asking them to describe "an ideal day in your life".
The first answer heard: I know what I want, but not everything is allowed.
I encouraged them: imagine that everything can be done!
The second answer was: but I don't have enough money.
I encourage him again: imagine-you'll have enough money!
And the paradox that was actually present in four out of four is my greatest discovery here in Moldova this year: none of them could describe an ideal day in his life on the first attempt!
So, these children, already at the age of adulthood, have not written at first what they want, where they wake up, who they live with, what they do on an ideal day in their life, which is also a simple day, only in their future. They don't see this future here, not even in their imagination, and, respectively, they don't know what they want and where to go”.
Kids with stolen futures?
My conclusion was that we have stolen the future of these children.
All of us together, the political party members and the non-political ones, the highly educated and the less educated, the ones living here, and the ones left abroad. We are all responsible for the consequences of this theft, which is worth more than a billion euros stolen from banks.
My generation was raised by those born in difficult times after the war. Our parents lived from "worse to better," and turned their present into a better future for their children, that is, for us.
We have lived times from "better to worse", and we haven't really been able to transform our present in a better future for our children.
Someone in the classics wrote that we took the Earth on loan from our children and we should return their debt in a better shape. I say that we, by having children, borrow their future and are responsible for returning their future to a better state than we received it from our parents.
And if we're not able to return a better future to them, that's the equivalent of stealing. So, we, the grown-ups, passed through the hard years, ended up stealing from the future of our children? And so, they don't pretend to be better, we brainwash them with stories, that nothing will change in the next 20 years? If those born in the USSR die, there will be a change here? And then we wonder why they don't know what they want and how is an ideal day in their lives?
Morals are simple and universal
If you've read this far, try taking a piece of paper and describing an ideal day in your own life. Everything you're going to want, or miss, is with the same subject and predicate, as the ideal day in these children's lives. I believe, that we are obliged to help these children to learn what they want and then to help these kids build this future and return their debts in such a way, that they return to the ascendant life and live from "worse to better", now and here in Moldova. I believe it is possible! For the sake of our children, everything is possible!
