As Indians, what do we think of parenting and marriages?
Unlike people around the world, or rather the western world. Not all of us are given a choice, when it comes to picking out a career or choosing a life partner.
Our parents still bifurcate marriages into arranged and love. They have completely devoid marriage of love. To them, the families matter, to them the age is of bigger concern that where you are, in your life. To them it matters, if I’d give birth to child before thirty, so I can push more, until I am 35 and then nurture them, well, while my husband, the bread earner, brings home his stress, switches on the television and has a vapid conversation with kids; all the while ignoring me.
This does not mean they don’t love us, mine have always been supportive but we have never breached any emotional topics. So, we are a family who is perfect, in every way, an Indian imagines.
Since, times have changed, they have introduced the concept of the modern marriage. Where both of us keep our jobs, but I come home and cook the dinner and do the chores. And I need to ensure my job never demands anything of me, challenges me or in any way fulfils, else I might quit my family and make my job the priority, like my husband.
All kids must envy the kids in the English shows, they so, diligently watch. I remember vaguely, while I was watching House MD, I’d hope that they show him going back to his apartment, alone and unwinding with a glass of scotch, his books and watching a documentary on the television. A life I could only live vicariously, because I would never have the liberty to do it, here. The fear of disappointing my parents would never let me be, ME. We watch the shows and wonder how the kids can live their lives there, take chances, hope to find some love and find happiness. But, I think the grass must be greener on the other side.
A life of solitude to Indians is a life wasted. A child, a husband and child bearing hips are the need of the hour. But, how does one sleep with a man, who you don’t believe in, much less have a child with. What if he doesn’t want the child to read Moby Dick or play the cello. What if his idea of good taste is watching GoT and I have to give up on my Ken Burns documentary. That aside, what if we never find that one moment, where we feel at home. Am I to bed with a stranger, every day of my life.
I hear this everyday, my colleague complaining about how her parents would never let her work beyond 9, while her sibling would leave from work at 11 and that was okay. Why is this okay? Why does a man have the opportunity to live his life till 30, until he is asked to marry while a woman is pestered to marry since the day she turns 20!
I would never say that my parents want me to do this or believe I shouldn’t have a career. They have been supportive all this while, but the question of marriage is a big one, and I suspect not all our parents are ready to understand or comprehend this, despite their love for us!
