The Great Indian Parental Generosity

We often come across satirical statements and messages on various social networking sites about how children in Indian societies are compared to their friends or neighbours in terms of their studies. All of us have had this experience throughout our childhood and have unwittingly hated the other kids with whom we were being compared with. I guess some of us are still searching for those “CHAAR LOG” (Four People) who are always interested in our lives and would say something dreadful if we try to do something that is not acceptable to widely accepted societal norms.

It is rather obvious today that all parents are in some form of the rat race to get their kids to do post-graduation and get a well-paying MNC job. It doesn’t matter what the child desires or whether the child has an aptitude for higher learning.

Recently I came across a video on Facebook summarizing HSBC's Value for Education Report 2016, which claimed that Indian parents are the most generous in the world. We rank first in ensuring that our children become graduates (91%) and postgraduates (88%), overtaking developed economies like the UK & US. We also take pride in knowing that close to 71% of us are willing to take loans to fund our child’s education. Now, this is definitely a positive sign. We do value education and want our children to be well-educated to face this increasingly challenging world.

However, what really caught my attention was that only 49% of parents value their child’s happiness over academic/professional success. So basically, we do not care if our child is depressed, emotionally handicapped or insensitive towards basic morality, till the time they are minting money basis their educational qualifications. This is a shocking yet obvious situation in Indian society today. We feel that emotions can be taken care of with a money-stuffed wallet.

How can we say we are generous when we are imposing our unfulfilled dreams on our children? How can we claim to be caring when we are making them slog for our ambitions?

The evidence of this insensitivity from Indian parents can be seen throughout the country’s social system. It can be seen in the increasing number of suicides committed by students due to exam-related stress, in the ever-growing number of stress-related ailments in the working population and in the unhinged brutality of crimes today. It can also be seen in the number of senior citizens being dumped into old-age homes by their own children.

Yet we turn a blind eye to things like these. We blame the children of today’s generation for being insensitive without looking inward even once and accepting that we are responsible for making them money-minting machines. We wanted them to be the best in what we wanted. We crushed their dreams for the sake of our own. We told them that, emotions do not fill up stomachs. They do not get us fat paychecks and rich spouses. We killed their emotions and still blame them for a crime we committed.

I believe it's time we stop burdening our children with our failed dreams. It's perfectly fine if your child does not wish to be a CEO. It's alright if he/she doesn’t want to get rich. I believe nature creates every life with a specific purpose and we as parents have no right to interfere in our child’s destiny.

It is time we become a guiding light for the path our child chooses to walk, rather than a shepherd, forcing everyone to join the herd.