Today's fast-changing world needs the anchor of values and virtues that families can provide. Strong families instill responsibility and character in our children and teach them the ideals that make us a great nation. Through their love and sacrifice, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings and other family members help prepare our young people to realize the bright future India offers for each child. In India, the concept of Joint family system was prevalent. Great grandfather, grand mother, grandpa, grandpa, father, mother, uncles, aunts, their children, nephews and nieces, were part of the great tharwads [ancestral house] and there was the Karanavar (Patriarch) who managed the whole family. The entire tharawad was looked after by him and all the wealth were under his direct control. He decided what should be done. Children often went by his commands. But as the time changed, a new wave of family hierarchy came into being. The Joint family system broke, nuclear families came into being, the children got separated, uncle and aunty went their own way, nephews and nieces went looking after greener pastures, the strict orthodoxy gave way to liberal thinking which saw inter-caste, inter-religion marriages becoming more and more frequent, the concept of joint family system and myths surrounding it has undergone a metamorphosis.
Not-So-Nuclear Families explains the often painful choices that parents have to make for their children's--and their own--well-being." In the United States public policy has focused on strengthening the nuclear family as a primary strategy for improving the lives of America's youth. It is often assumed that this normative type of family is an independent, self-sufficient unit adequate for raising children. But half of all households in the United States with young children have two employed parents. How do working parents provide care and mobilize the help that they need? In Not-So-Nuclear Families, An investigation into the lives of working parents and the informal networks they construct to help care for their children has been documented by sociologists. Each must navigate the ideology that mandates that parents, mothers in particular, rear their own children, in the face of an economic reality that requires that parents rely on the help of others. In vivid family stories, parents detail how they and their network of friends, paid caregivers, and extended kin collectively close the "care gap" for their school-aged children. Sociologists have debunked the myth that families in the United States are independent, isolated, and self-reliant units, by asserting that informal networks of care can potentially provide unique and valuable bonds that nuclear families cannot.
The rise in the number of dual-earner couples in India may have led to an increase in the standard of living but it has also given rise to issues like how to balance home and work and how to devote enough time to children. There are many parents in India who depend on their children for their livelihood, having spent a fortune to rear their children. Some of them who had put their retirement doles into some form of activity benefiting their children have no source of independent income in their old age. Pathetic is the mother’s case in case of bereavement of her husband. She has no body to care her, nor shelter her. She .sometimes goes to one of the Old age homes to live the life of a destitute.
The rise in the number of dual-earner couples in India may have led to an increase in the standard of living but it has also given rise to issues like how to balance home and work and how to devote enough time to children.An international online poll conducted by a foreign based market research firm found that 74 percent of Indian respondents want a better home-work balance. Half said they want to spend more time with their families. Couples are increasingly recognizing that any sort of balance can be achieved only if both partners chip in. For each couple, it's a matter of finding out what works best for them. There are a number of techies who work from mid afternoon to midnight or who do night duties. The responsibility of rearing the children falls on the spouse who has to adjust his job or reorient his schedule of work. This suit greatly the people who work from Home Office.
A journalist family friend of mine had to work the afternoon shift and she had to invariably work late into the night. Her husband was a photographer who had a studio in his residence itself. This gave him cushion to look after their 5 year old kid and it was he who had played a large part in bringing up their daughter. He helped the child to go our for a stroll, taking her to the garden to play, helping her during mealtimes and taking her to the Doctor for check ups. Even though women feel that being in a career gives her a great deal of opportunity to be self reliant, and provide a more comfortable lifestyle for their family, they feel guilty that their spouse has to carry the duty of parenting the child alone. Though his understanding nature helps, he has to sacrifice his job for the sake of his family. It is not an easy ride. The husband has out-station jobs, and his unavoidable absence leave a vacuum in the household, as the child has to be left to the care of their neighbour who is busy with her two school going children and business-man husband. The Child also registers her protest by repeatedly crying when her mom leaves her house when the child’s father is away. The journalist friend often feels very tired when she is unable to play with her daughter on weekend holidays. Although dual-earner couples are almost the norm now, it’s hard on the child. All talks of quality time with kids are fine but it really just isn’t enough, which is why people prefer to have the support system like grandparents at home. .
That the family as a unit is in its transition stage is an understatement but that many facets of it are either understudied or has remained untouched by the researchers. We need to understand the importance of relationship between the siblings apart from the numerous tensions between the husband and wife and parents and children that are confronted by the nuclear families in these times. The key to resolving work-life balance challenges, in fact, is flexibility. The way people negotiate working and parenting is an ongoing process and evolves continually. There are many sociologists who believe it is futile to talk in terms of nuclear versus joint families, which is only an academic construction to understand Indian family. We must get out of this framework in order to grapple with the contemporary family composition. According to some others, this entire talk of nuclear versus joint family has an upper class urban approach, as the dichotomy does not lie in all strata of society in the country.
However, leaving old parents to live in their homes, when their children migrate to United States or far away Europe, with a Nurse, which is often the case in most of the families, has left the parents to muse over their past days of glory in solitariness. Some of the active ones, spent time visiting libraries, chatting with their friends of their age in the open lands attached to the temples, churches or mosques, while others whose mobility is restricted due to wear and tear, sit glued to the TV watching the modern mini screen stories. Some of them feel orphaned, destitute and forlorn. Their stories have no end or beginning. Sending a few Dollars to them is considered to be a great favour done by the siblings to their parents. What they want is Love, affection and see their grand children play. But to deprive them this pleasure, when they need most, in their old age, is itself pathos for the parents who struggled their life time to support their children!
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