Decoding the trend of coding for infants

BENGALURU: Last week, a digital-educational company landed in a soup for advertisements that promised coding classes for kids as young as six. The ads featured parents who reminded us of the importance of kidsw starting early, and that even little kids could learn coding, create apps, and become CEOs of their own companies – even before they could legally pop open a can of beer! 

I know nothing about coding, but having worked as a copywriter, I know a thing or two about advertising. In fact, for decades Indian companies have been promising life-changing transformations by applying fairness creams, or winning dates with Brazilian supermodels by spraying a can of aerosol deodorant. Interestingly, I landed my job as a copywriter after somebody noticed a short story I wrote, and recognised my potential as a fibber-fabricator. 

However, encouraging kids as young as six to code was admittedly shocking even for me. The advertisements showed kids getting placed in high-tech IT jobs, at an age when their chief worry should have been speculating about the contents of their lunchboxes. Which begs the question – how early is too early to set one’s child out on a career path? 

When I was 10 years old, my parents tried their best to keep me as far away from home as possible. Like most children, I spent my evenings meandering about, doing nothing all day. I’d watch TV (which offered ONE channel), walk around the colony, or read a comic if I felt erudite on that day. When elders asked me the dreaded question - ‘What do you want to become in life?’ - it was a purely rhetorical question. I have answered everything from ‘astronaut’ to ‘astrologer’, and nobody pressed on with further questions. My parents did send me to music classes once, but the teacher heard my voice and decided I wasn’t worthy of being imparted the great musical legacy of the masters. 

For today’s kids however, the sky’s the limit in terms of possibilities. But as a great philosopher (probably) said, with great gadgets come great parental pressure. Children of today are expected to be taller, stronger, sharper than their parents; to have whiter teeth, smoother skin, and embark on the journey of an IT engineer before puberty strikes its deadly blow. But then, why stop at coding for kids? Why not explore other career paths?

Why not an online course for young politicians? Where children make promises to their parents and never come good on them? Or a course for young goondas - who eat up others’ tiffin boxes and beat up their classmates during recess?

I am conversant in five languages, but Java and C++ are not among them. I picked up most of my knowledge of computers by visiting Internet cafes that promised beautiful girls in my area waiting for me. The only time I was invested in software and coding was at the peak of the Y2K fear. We were told that all the computers of the world would stop working from Dec 31, 1999. When I found that the world really hadn’t come to a standstill in the new millennium, my interest towards computing and software receded dramatically. 

But my heart goes out to the kids of today. Technology might have transformed the way we lead our lives, but it failed to ease the pressure applied by Indian parents. The kids of today have the option of doing 
anything in the world, but lack the luxury of doing nothing all day.