A read for the Indian parent, be it a parent like me with young kids or parents who have grown up kids.
I know your offspring always remain a kid for you lifelong, but please think over this. In my generation including me, I see a lot of us are in a learned helpless state for most of the daily necessities. Why is it so?
Indian parents are too much concerned about kids. They initially start looking after their babies, kids, and teenagers, which is necessary. But then it continues towards looking after the youth and even after marriage. And most offer services to the next generation as well. To an extent this is good. But aren’t you creating a useless generation and you forget to live your own life serving your kids lifelong.
Why don’t we allow college students to fund their own studies? While many parents think, the student won’t find time for a part-time job while attending the university; the fact is that it helps them become more organized. And their time management skills will be stronger than before. This also creates a value for studies, when they spend this hard earned money to pay the fee. It will be an experience for them to manage money as well.
Coming to the matter of household chores, independent of gender , there are a basic set of daily chores each of them are supposed to do. Daily necessities like being clean, keeping surroundings clean, cooking one’s own dish, washing own clothes. Most of the parents do this for their children even when they are grown up.
And the services are offered even after their marriage and even after they get kids and so on. Many a times I have heard desperate fathers say, “I don’t know how to hold a baby” and they instead ask the grandparents of the baby to do that. Does that sound like a reasonable excuse? The trend nowadays is grandparents turning into the baby sitters. Ultimately the new parent doesn’t know to take care of their own child.
And after all these, so when are the parents actually going to live their own life, once a parent then aren’t you supposed to live your life ? So dear parents, think over all these. You cannot be there around for them, every time. Please teach them to be independent instead of doing all the chores for them. When you do too much for your kids, you are unknowingly stealing their skills and practice necessary to develop their competence and mastery in life.
Just as I read in the book “Becoming” by Michelle Obama, the author says how her mother used to make them do things independently at a very young age by saying “I am raising adults and not babies”. I believe that clearly states how a First Lady of the United States was framed.
