Modern family

On the occasion of Parent’s Day today, APARNNA HAJIRNIS looks at the changing face of the Indian family

Six-year-old Tisha (name changed) loves going to school. She attends one of the elite schools in Mumbai and travels by her chauffeur-driven car. Tisha has many friends and is like any other school-going girl, but has a different living arrangement at home. Tisha’s parents are raising her in the ‘co-parenting’ way. Tisha’s mother is a media professional and her father’s start-up recently received funding. They chose to raise her independently without getting married, as neither of them feel they are ‘there’ yet in terms of their relationship. Tisha’s mother luckily got support from her parents in her unconventional way of raising her daughter and so did Tisha’s father. The uncertainty of their relationship looms over their heads as both of them feel either could walk out any time, but Tisha holds them together and has strengthened their relationship. On her part, little Tisha enjoys having two homes. Even though she lives with her mother, she loves attending the jam sessions with her father and his band. (Of course, the boys are careful not to drink and smoke around her.)

Fluid combinations

This brings us to the topic of the everchanging face of Indian families and parenting. Indian couples and families are undergoing radical changes in raising kids. Gone are the days when the only topic of discussion were nuclear versus joint families. The entire social structure has changed. Today we have blended families, adoptive families, and homosexual families, to name a few. People have realised that the need to connect with children is a fulfilling experience and cannot be marred by social constructs. Back in the day, children whose parents had divorced were labelled as ‘children from broken homes’. This is no longer the case now. That said, the majority still love to live with families, the traditional, conventional way.

Family fortune

Says DJ Paroma, “To me, I consider this as an era of nuclear families. I am an extremely homely person, and I am accompanied by a loving mother and an even more loving grandmother, and my pet dog Sasha, who is like a family member. I am grateful for all the time that I get to spend with my favourite people, as I have an extremely hectic schedule shuttling from one place to the other. I guess with changing times and situations, nuclear families are increasingly emerging. I personally believe this is a good thing as it strengthens relations, as distance makes the heart grow fonder.”

Sufi and classical singer, Sona Jadhav believes that joint families are the most important part of our Indian values and traditions. “There is a flip-side to living alone and one cannot live away from family for a long time. Living with families ensures you are well taken care of and that you always have someone to fall back on. If we are living alone, we get prone to being lonely and depressed, but if we are surrounded by our families we are ensured of our physical and mental well-being. A family functions like our bodies. If one part of the body is affected, slowly and steadily the others get affected too. Hence, it is important for us to be a part of a family and live together.”

Solo living

However, the younger generations are not so keen to live with their families. Swastika (name changed) has been living alone for over a decade in Bengaluru. She moved out of her parents’ home in Bhopal to pursue a career in finance. Swastika says, “It was tough during the days when I was preparing for my MBA as I didn't know a lot of people here nor did I speak the local language. However, once I got a job, I settled in and I realised there is a certain sense of independence and thrill that you get by living alone. You don't have deadlines, you don't have to answer to anyone, you can have boys over (chuckles). Going back to my parents' house during vacations is a bit of a task. I talk to them, but living alone has made me become more responsible. Even my parents have noticed that change in me.”

Unconventional parenthood

The newer generation has a different outlook on relationships and marriages, and even parenting. In recent times we have seen a number of Bollywood celebrities opt for adoption and choose unconventional parenting methods. Be it single dads Tusshar Kapoor or Karan Johar, they chose surrogacy to have children.

Sushmita Sen had made news for adopting her daughters as a single woman. Disha Parekh, who left Mumbai to live life in Bengaluru on her own terms, aims to do likewise. Disha began teaching for Teach For India and realised how much she enjoyed being with kids, though she has no plans of marrying.

Says Disha, “Since I had been avoiding my parents’ relentless pursuit of getting me married, I decided to rebel a little more and apply for adoption. I registered on cara.nic.in in December 2017 as a single mother who wants to adopt a girl child between 2-4 years from either Maharashtra/ UP/ Karnataka.”

Loneliness issue

Some might look at this sort of unconventional arrangement as a lonely one. However, psychologist Paras Sharma differs. “I don’t think this is the age of loneliness or that the days of yore were times when people were connected to each other. One can argue that in smaller families, children get more undivided parental attention than in large joint families where older children do a bulk of the parenting of the younger children. I remember my mother, who was one of six children growing up in a joint family, constantly telling me how she was a quiet, lonely child for every single day of her childhood even though she was living in a full house.”

Paras raises an important point which has been largely neglected across the world – the work-life balance status. “Companies think that asking for reasonable hours, fixed days off, or having a crèche at work are unreasonable demands for employees to raise. So the option is to either not have children or that children stay away from the working parent(s). I think the finger is to be pointed at the gig economy which has meant that work-life balance, which was a fundamental right under permanent employment, has disappeared from the landscape completely. It’s easier to call out ‘Western culture’ and how it erodes ‘our culture’. But it is harder to point out that we have adopted the ideas of capitalism, but chucked out our ideas of welfare completely.”

Status quo

If we were to sum up the current family structure, the dynamics of our families haven’t changed that much at all. If we look at privileged and upper classes in India, who more or less control the social discourse, the tendency is still towards joint families, and endogamous communities. For the poor and the marginalised, nuclear families emerged as a necessity and not a choice – where people had to migrate for jobs. The upper classes and castes are pretty much endogamous even today, because wealth and capital need to be held within the family. When it is claimed that nuclear families or live-in relationships are destroying culture, what is actually meant is that the wealth and capital may now go outside the small privileged community, and it needs to be stopped. Sorry granny, your game is up!