DR UBALDINA NORONHA
On October 11, 2026, in Kochi, a Mini Cooper car was reportedly involved in an accident that killed three young MBA students, aged between 21 and 22. Reports say the car was driven by a 19-year-old who was allegedly drunk. The young man had reportedly posted reels earlier in April showing himself driving at 220 kilometres an hour. The car was said to have been a gift from his mother.
Similar accidents have occurred in Goa as well. These incidents pose a difficult question: ‘When does providing for a child replace parenting altogether?’
A car can be a gift. It can also be a responsibility the recipient is not yet ready to carry. The distinction is not about whether parents should give their children comforts or opportunities. It is about teaching what accompanies the gift: Limits, preparation, responsibility and accountability.
For many parents, providing is love made visible. It is the school fees paid, the home maintained, the phone bought, and the car handed over. There is nothing trivial about those efforts. In our country, providing can demand years of sacrifice from parents. The older idea of provision centred around parental love, ‘I have worked hard for you; now you have what I could not have.’ But provision does not automatically amount to parenting.
Sometimes, a costly gift from the parent is an expression of affection, a trade-off or even an apology for a parent’s absence. However, it cannot substitute the harder work of actually parenting the children. Parenting is less visible and often more exhausting. It means listening when a child says something troubling, setting a boundary that may provoke anger and returning repeatedly to a difficult conversation.
The research by psychologist Diana Baumrind helps explain why parenting cannot be simply indulgence or control. She distinguished, broadly, between approaches that impose rules without much warmth vis-à-vis those approaches that offer much warmth with few limits. In reality, children need both affection and connection along with clear expectations and guidance. A parent who buys a powerful car but never discusses its risks has given a possession, not the skills to use it responsibly.
Developmental psychologist Laurence Steinberg has written about how young people’s decision-making can be vulnerable in emotionally charged situations and in the presence of peers. This confirms the idea “they are old enough to know” is not a complete parenting strategy. Knowing a rule is different from being able to follow it when friends are cheering, alcohol is involved and the thrill of speed is on display.
Psychologist Albert Bandura’s social-learning theory also reminds us that children learn by observing what people do, not only by hearing what they say. If parents treat traffic rules as optional or excuse dangerous behaviour as youthful bravado, a lecture about safety may ring hollow. A reel filmed at a dangerous speed may attract admiration precisely because it looks daring. Parents cannot control every online influence, but they can help children question what those videos leave out: Harmful consequences and their victims.
Parents cannot monitor every moment of their child, and they should not try to. The goal is to help children become capable of choosing well when no adult is watching. That capacity grows through practice, explaining rules, giving age-appropriate freedom, discussing mistakes without humiliation and making boundaries real. A boundary is not a threat to a child’s independence. It can be one of the ways a parent teaches independence to include responsibility for others.
No family can guarantee that a child will never make a terrible decision. Parenting is not the power to control outcomes. It is the responsibility to prepare, guide and intervene when a child requires it. We often measure parental love by what children receive.
The real test of a gift may not be the joy it brings, but whether the child is ready for the responsibility that comes with it and the boundaries within which they must enjoy that gift.
(The writer is Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, St Xavier’s College, Mapusa)
