TheJakartaPost
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Let’s talk about marriage and all its consequences
Like millions, if not billions, of people worldwide, Indonesian parents do not know the critical strategies of raising their children and teenagers in the digital age.
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Group wedding: A number of couples join a procession before taking their wedding vows on July 4 at the mayoral residence in Madiun, East Java. The Madiun mayor arranged the wedding for free. (Antara/Siswowidodo)
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nyone who commutes daily in Greater Jakarta could instantly sense that the city has been built unequally. The way people go to offices with various levels of convenience and modes of transportation tells us of the failed project of urbanization and modernization.
Even with the increase of the well-educated population, their ambition to build a digital economy and the current public transportation reform, we may need more decades to finally see Greater Jakarta turn into a more livable city.
As Jakarta is the epicenter of national development, the daily chaos in the metropolitan city represents the systemic problems of the whole country in general. Like an infectious disease, the failed transportation system, traffic congestion, worsening air pollution and overall inequality signs could be found anywhere across the country.
At the same time, digitalization in the last decade also left us to be self-driven. Suddenly, we arrive in an era when everything seems increasingly microscopic and individualistic. Indeed, our cohesiveness and family values are at stake.
Like millions, if not billions, of people worldwide, Indonesian parents do not know the critical strategies of raising their children and teenagers in the digital age. Everything has been materialized in the forms of quantified loves and likes that put every single individual, with their complex interest and emotion, as a matter of bit within the so-called big data.
These challenges have been exacerbated by the pandemic, climate change and ongoing geopolitical uncertainties. While Jakarta is sinking and consistently ranked among the most polluted cities in the world, the surge in commodity prices due to the Russia-Ukraine war hits the reality even harder.
Recently, United States House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan has sparked fears of more damaging consequences of the ongoing US-China trade war. We have been left clueless about what will happen in the upcoming months.
