Right now, I can
see very closely a couple of parent couples in my life - my parents as parents
of 30-plus years old children (my sister and I), and my wife and I as
parents of an year and 10 months old boy. This "Chautauqua" (a word
which I borrowed from my favorite book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle
Maintenance") is about the importance (emotional, qualitative and
non-materialistic) and relevance (practical, quantitative and materialistic) of
parents in our fast paced "Gen X" lives.
The trigger for
this "Chautauqua" is one of my casual conversations with one of my
friends' wife. We were just sitting around and chitchatting on a weekend, and
the topic of applying for a Permanent Residency (PR) for Canada came up. She,
along with my friend, is currently pondering over moving to Canada and settling
down there. The driving force for their thought of settling out is the ease of
life in a developed country like Canada - the state-sponsored quality education
and healthcare, social security, lifestyle, good general infrastructure,
economy, very low inflation, and thus consistent affordability and quality of
life. These factors are genuine and look attractive to me too. So, on and off,
I keep giving thinking about the idea of moving to some other country for a
better and comfortable life. For a critical assessment of the idea, I think
about the challenges that one would face being an immigrant in a foreign
country. However, the main challenge that I foresee and on which my plan
stumbles upon is the thought that how my parents, who are approaching an age of
60, will manage life in their old age, if one of their child is living in the
US and the other in Canada.
I will elaborate
on my thought process a bit later, but first I want to mention the thinking of
my friend's wife which very closely represents the currently trending "Gen
X" thinking of the modern India. When I put across my concern for my
parents to my friend's wife, she said that our concern for our parents should
not hold us back from progressing towards a better career or life. She said
that if she is ready to part away with her parents to marry and live with my
friend, and when she does not expect to stay with her parents anymore, then my
friend should also not insist upon living with his parents in their old age.
She agreed that the parents need their children during old age, particularly at
the time of health issues, but that can be managed well even if we are not
living with our parents. Immediate neighbors or nearby family members may
assist during emergency, and then we can always fly back in time to attend to
them. And if we foresee a prolonged dependency at some point, then we can work
on a plan to come back to live with them and help them. I see this pattern of
thinking as consisting of two major components – one, a thought process of
doing something for your parents only in case of an emergency, and two, an
ignorance towards the practical feasibility of what we think the circumstances
will be and how we would react mentally and emotionally in those or the
unexpected circumstances.
First of all, we
must respect the fact that our parents have taken care of us at least for 20-25
odd years of our lives, and they did not take care of us only in case of
emergencies during that time. When our parents turn old, no matter they have an
experience of a lifetime with them, but they do have a very big emotional
dependency on us, even if the emotions have not been that greatly expressed
during the last many years of our adulthood.
Secondly, I
understand the thinking that "relationships should not come in one's
pursuit of his/her dreams". But I also feel that "relationships"
should not be ignored or be not given their due respect. We are in a very fast
moving world, our thoughts are moving even faster per say. With so much of
information being flown into our minds at such a fast pace, we give very less
time to explore the depths of our thoughts. Without a careful assessment we commit
ourselves to futile ideas and plans. With all the info we have, we might be
able to see the theoretical feasibility of our plans, but what we might not perceive
is how our soul/mind would react at the different circumstantial milestones or un-perceived
developments during the pursuit. It is very easy to say that neighbors or
friends can be of help to our needy parents if we are remote, but can we
actually count on that? It is easy to say that we can fly anytime in case
of an emergency, but isn’t it difficult to predict whether our commitment
to work, immediate family, society, or the federal obligations or financial
restraints will allow us to move that freely when required? Leave apart the
uncertainty about the longevity or criticality of the help that our parents
might need. Why don't we think that if the children themselves don't want to be
around to care for their parents then why will non-related acquaintances want
to forego their personal commitments to help somebody else’s parents? There is
a chance that they would help, but I feel that it is too big a risk to assume
that someone would help. Even if someone helps, how long or in what proportion
to the help required will they be able to contribute. And why do we think about
just help, won’t the parents want a family around during their day-to-day life?
I read an
article recently which mentioned facts about how India is the youth capital of the
world, with the largest resource pool of young talented minds, but it is yet to
be a country where senior citizens or old can sustain all by themselves. Until
it becomes so, I feel that it is foolish to leave your old parents just based
on some not-so-carefully thought-over assumptions or plans. When we commit to
plan a pursuit of our goals, we must equally commit to plan for our parents. If
we can’t make a sustainable plan for our parents, we must not just ignore them
and just go ahead into the pursuit for our selfish goals.
All this is not
just jnana (popularly pronounced as “Gyan” in Hindi). I have instances to back
it up. A few months back mother of my friend’s wife came over to visit her for
7 days. My friend used to be working at his client location in another city
during those days, and he visited home for couple of days in a week. My friends’
wife normally worked from home for majority of the days of a week, however
during those 7 days, she had to go to office almost every day because of some
work commitment. The mother of my friend’s wife was quite bored during those 7
days. It was obvious that she had a different picture of her time with her
daughter and son-in-law in mind, when she planned her trip. The only
considerable time that she spent out of the house was with my wife, that too
for shopping some grocery and house-hold stuff for her children. She found some
joy playing with my son, but that joy was packaged with the want of playing
with her grandchildren which was then ruthlessly turned down by my friend and
his wife. After she went back to her hometown, my friend’s wife felt and shared
her regret that she was not able to entertain her mother properly during her
short visit. I understand the various valid reasons to justify everything that
happened and I don’t judge my friend and his wife to be right or wrong in their
actions, but I do want to focus on one big take away from this instance. If we
cannot control our circumstances, actions and emotions for a few days while we
are so close to our parents, how can we be so confident about our ability to
handle the situations when we are sitting miles away from them, when they
expect a little togetherness or some help from us.
If I discuss all
of this with my parents, they will definitely ask me to put all these thoughts
to rest and pursue the idea of settling down outside of India if I may want to.
But I think that how much so ever the life outside India might be appealing to
me personally, I will end up not wanting to go out ignoring my parents and my
responsibilities towards my entire family. Over the last 7 years of my life, I
think I have grown to become an important pillar supporting my parents, and also
my entire family. To mention a few examples, I have done all groundwork for 2 property
transactions to invest my family’s money, helped repair one of our 20 plus
years old property, managed family’s investments in equity, befriended and given
emotional support to my 90+ year old grandfather who desperately seek emotional
acceptance in family, planned my sister’s wedding, single handedly took care of
my mother when she was hospitalized recently for 5 days, supported my in-laws
when my father-in-law was unwell, and finally gave my parents and in-laws the joy
of playing with their grandson. I don’t feel burdened by these responsibilities.
Instead, I cherish them as they give me an opportunity to reciprocate a minuscule
portion of what my parents have done for me during my current lifetime of 30
odd years. This does not mean that thoughts to achieve something of personal
interest don’t come to me. It is just that I tend to assess the foundations of
such thoughts to ensure that what I build on them is able to sustain the
unperceived challenges and circumstances of life, and is able to take my whole
life, including my current associations and responsibilities, to the next
level.
