Joint family? Wow..!
How many of your friends or colleagues live in a joint family? The most probable answer would be ‘none’ or ‘2 to 3’ out of say 10. I am one of those few among my friends. There have always been more or less(mostly more)10 members in the house. I am very well used to getting a funny expression that is of both shock and surprise when mentioning my family background.
My country, India, has the highest number of joint families and yet it makes up to just 16% of all households. It may seem confusing or exciting to imagine a house with more than ten people in it where everyone’s activities are affected in both good and bad ways simply because they all live together and hence, most want to at least live in a separate house and have freedom while maintaining a good equation with the relatives.
I remember going on a short trip once with one of my uncles and his family while coming back home from boarding school and I enjoyed it so much, even without my parents. But the other time, I was not able to go some place with my friends solely because my uncle didn’t want to send his son, who is the same age as mine and we had the same group of friends, so, I wasn’t allowed to go either, even after getting permission from my father. For these reasons, when I chat with people about my family and they go “It must be so fun with all the cousins together all the time”, I used to get flashbacks of the happy moments tangled up with the not-so-happy ones.
Being among the third generation of the house, the cousins, my sister and I have comparatively easier lives than our parents did when all of my uncles and aunts had to start working while studying from a very young age. Although they had their share of good times too, in the struggling days, what made it bearable was that they were all together. Now, when the aunts share the stories of those times and tell how mischievous their brothers were and how the elder sisters were nothing less than mothers to the younger ones, it is always the happy memories made together that makes it all worth it for them.
In the end, if ever I were to pick “sides” between choosing to live in a joint family or a nuclear family, let me be honest with you and tell you that I have always loved how it feels when everyone is together for the smallest of celebrations. But again, sometimes your own family is all you need without the opinions of other relatives.
However big or small, a happy family is all one wants who stays by their side in good but especially bad times and this is what I have always believed- I may be happy to be only with my parents and sister , but what about my parents’ parents and siblings? They have such a good influence on each other that they want their children, us, to experience it too and to carry this feeling of love, respect, and understanding among each other in the future.
