Yesterday at my work in the emergency department I saw a very sick little girl brought in by her teacher. We diagnosed the problem and started some treatment. I think, if she had been living at home, the problem would have been picked up sooner because the girl's parents would have realized there was something badly wrong and agitated for something to be done. Not that the school ignored the problem - on the contrary - they took her to doctors but they, and the doctors, just don't have the maternal instinct that a child's parent has in these situations.
So there I was, putting a drip in this poor little sick lonely frightened kid with no parent to hold her hand.
The gir's parents live a long way away from the city, and they obviously want their little girl to get a good education.
But I can't help thinking about all the family life the little girl is missing out on.
Don't you think that family life is more important than anything else? Why have children if you are not going to watch them grow up and let them enjoy their childhood and home life?
Some of these boarding school children will no doubt just get married and have children themselves (who they will then probably send to boarding school as well, since nurturing patterns of parental behaviour tend to carry down the generations), perhaps never using this education for which their family has sacrificed so much. And if the child doesn't become a rocket scientist when they could have been one - well does that actually matter? I mean, really, what is more important? Surely there is some sort of distance education the child could do eg via the internet?
Not to mention the boarding school food which she hates. The food seems to have evoked that very same response in all children throughout the ages.