Quite noticeable is the tendency among grown-up children today to view their aged parents with callous disregard and to neglect them, especially if the parents are not without means. Elderly people if they are penniless generally become burdens and objects of ridicule. Some youngsters, hen-pecked husbands, disgrace themselves by putting their parents in old age homes. Some elders, it must be admitted, are also capable of being a bit of a nuisance to their children, provoking disrespect.
India issteeped in tradition. In what came to be called a ‘combined family system’, parents, children, and grandparents all lived together under one roof, united by love and mutual concern. Grandparents, though, in many cases with no source of financial support, did share the burden of raising the small children. The reciprocal love and esteem between the generations held the joint family together.
A burden and a liabiltyBut the times have changed. Today many parents are viewed as a burden, a liability. Young fathers and mothers go to work to make money. Their babies have their crèches. The aged grandparents are no longer needed and therefore are dispensable. Such a state of affairs ushered in the new ‘fashion’ of lodging elderly parents in senior homes. Commercially run old age homes have mushroomed, especially around the larger cities.
Parents forsaken by their children and put in such homes, often ascribe this unsympathetic situation to the newcomer in the family — the daughter-in-law. The young woman certainly likes to assume the reins of the family. Some men assume they are superior to women. But when it comes to matters of conjugal bliss, even such male chauvinists know they are weak. For, men love in haste and detest at leisure. They try, albeit unsuccessfully, to defeat this ridiculous penchant. Young women exploit this weakness and cast them to their knees. Once the prince is captivated, the queen is captured.
Formula for troubleSome mothers-in-law, however, become adamant and refuse to abdicate, as it would dent their ego. Peace and serenity that characterise a combined family give way to persecution and belligerence between the women. The young lady then quietly persuades her husband either to live separately with her or to convince his parents in feigned innocence and love to accept the old age home option. The foundation of the family develops cracks.
But it is unfair to impute blame on the daughter-in-law alone. Women as mothers are most loving humans, but as mothers-in-law some of them transform themselves into incorrigible termagants. Until his marriage, the young son focussed all his love and adoration on his mother. Now another woman has entered the arena, determined to make her own a major share of his love and indulgence. This feeling that dwells in her subconscious racks her. Many girls have committed suicide, unable to bear dowry torture at the hands of their mothers-in-law.
A tale from JapanAncient Japan had a strange tradition. After retirement from active service, people lived on for several barren years of ‘no worth’. They were no help either to themselves or to anyone around. Some nonagenarian parents were such an impossible millstone around their children’s neck that they were constrained to disencumber themselves of their parental burden. Young men carried their disenchanted parents to a god-forsaken hilltop far from home and abandoned them there. With no food or water, the frail body soon withered and the breath of life departed.
A robust young son threw his aged mother on his shoulder and tramped away. Mother knew her sole beloved son was taking her out to her Golgotha. And, the journey was long through thick jungles. They brushed through the whole snaky distance of thickets and bushes and tall trees. It was a footman’s pathway. All the way, neither mother nor son opened their mouth even once in conversation.
The old mother, precariously hanging truss-shaped over her son’s shoulder, was wide awake. From their entry into the forest, the mother was doing something that her son initially ignored. Every now and then she plucked some twigs and sprigs or whatever her swinging hands could reach and littered their path with them. The son became rather curious. At one stage he asked her what she was doing, scattering stuff along the way. She answered that she was securing a safe trail for him through the forest, so he would find his way back home.
This changed the son’s mind. Tears rolled down his cheeks. He turned around and went back home, of course with his mother. The son had finaally perceived the mother’s love!
Love, the noblest frailty of the mind, conquers all things. Yet, old age homes increase in number because soft and supple is the heart of parents, while hard as flint is that of their children.
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