Presence of grandparents should be there – from both the ideal and the practical points of view.
It helps the children in realizing/understanding certain things (mostly unconsciously or in an unplanned way).
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Elderly parents and their adult children should live together in the same house.
If at present, the economy and the housing scenario in large cities in the developed and the developing world do not support the above, then it is these that must change.
(As an example of how things should not be – I read somewhere that the ‘housing crisis’ in Britain makes it difficult for young couples to start a family).
Although, in the first 3 to 4 years of his/her working life, a young adult may live alone; and perhaps in the first 1 or 2 years of their marital life, the son and the daughter-in-law may live by themselves i.e. only the two of them in the house. During these periods, the parents may stay with their son/daughter for – say – 1 to 3 months a year.
NOTE : The second condition above, in the October Papers, is not considered ‘desirable’ as such, or necessary. It is just ‘alright’.
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A good family, a happy family is that in which the family-members think of and try for the happiness and well-being of one another.
–Before that of oneself.
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The earning &/or middle-aged generation should take complete care of their parental generation. (-including parents-in-law).
It is something they would do out of love.
But speaking in another way, it is also their duty. One of the most important in life.
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Family life. Human relationships. Loving one another. Working together and helping one another, caring for one another.
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A married lady living with her ‘matrimonial family’ has the responsibility to take care of her parents, as and when necessary, including simply keeping company for say a few weeks every year. The children may stay with the mother or the father on such occasions. The husband should extend considerable support from time to time, in this regard, if necessary.
If the parents of the lady have a son, then it is almost entirely the son’s responsibility to take care of the material and physical needs of his parents. The lady should want to help, but needs to help only occasionally.
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Once they are above 63 or 65, the senior couple should live round the year, all the time, with their son (or daughter, if unmarried), in the house in the city where their son works. The son should be wanting that, should spend a little more for a larger house and/or the State and/or the employer and/or the real estate developer should accommodate for that.
-Or if they wish, the senior couple may spend a few months of the year in their ancestral/country house i.e. the family house owned by the senior generation. -And the rest with their son.
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NOTES :
- Of course, it is equally the son’s responsibility to take care of his parents ‘emotionally’ and spiritually. In terms of recreation etc. –Not just material and physical.
2) It is the ‘institutional’/’formal’ responsibility and also the moral responsibility of a daughter-in-law to take care of her parents-in-law. Though that responsibility is primarily of the son.
3) For a certain kind of privacy or relationship-specific reasons, it is alright if the middle-aged couple and their senior (the elder couple) live in slightly discrete portions/rooms of the house/ apartment. Though they dine together, have tea together in the evenings, have the same drawing room.
In spirit, the whole house belongs to the entire family.
4) A family should also adjust a little.. in matters of space or physical comfort/convenience.
Just like lounging on a soft deep cushioned furniture may seem comfortable to some persons, at least in the beginning, but after a while, it may not be; just as sitting on a plain wooden chair may seem austere to begin with, but eventually one may prefer it.
What is ‘comfortable’ is not always comfortable, not always the most desirable thing, the best experience overall.
It should be that the desires, the ‘priorities’ of each family-member is for togetherness, life together. – and not of physical comfort or convenience.
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Here is a picture of what an ideal family life and the mentality of its members, should be like :
‘..interests, among them his devotion to science and linguistics. He had been to the Sorbonne and to Heidelberg and had studied seven European languages, which he spoke fluently and in which he wrote poetry that the rest of us were not always able to appreciate!
We were all one family living together in the manner of those days. The joint family has ceased to exist, but it had its uses since it was a form of social security and insurance and no one was abandoned. Every boy was provided with an education and a job, a suitable husband was found for every girl, and widowed aunts, grandmothers, and others belonging to the family were integrated into it. They were wanted and respected. There was, as always, another side to this picture that was less pleasant. Many a young man who could have made good on his own was content to remain a parasite under the sheltering care of a more prosperous relative.
The children of the family belonged equally to every member of it, and it was usual to see one sister-in-law bringing up and even nursing the child of another along with her own. The grandmother had a special status, and respect and affection for her grew with age.
There was no fear in the minds of the older men and women in the family that they would be denied the love and shelter of the home at any time or for any reason. And they, in their turn, gave the children and young people a sense of perspective. Obligations and responsibilities were as important as privileges – there had to be a balance. In some ways these elders were anchors that kept the domestic boat steady and on an even keel. They also kept the best traditions alive in the family, and it would be unfair to brush aside the contributions they made. Obviously there were some who did not give as much as they received, but this is the way of life.
Eastern stories are full of horrors committed by mothers-in-law on young daughters-in-law who are entirely unprotected. Part of this picture is true; but the average home, in which the older woman kept the balance between sons’ wives and other dependent women in the family, should not be forgotten.
The plight of old people in Western countries is heartrending. They are unwanted, and society, by building lavishly furnished and well-run homes for the aged, closes its eyes to the fact that four walls and three meals a day do not mean “home” to any but the least sensitive of individuals. The race against time creates a pattern of fear in the lives of both men and women, and growing old gracefully and accepting the inevitable is not very apparent. Every time I see a head of hair in any of the shades recognized by fashion, above a face battered and unhappy, I am full of sorrow for the poor woman who should be glorying in her age, full of happy memories of her earlier life and content to accept the challenge of the future.
The family house belonged to everybody, and relatives could come at any time and stay as long as they wished. It was their unquestioned right to do so. A tonga, piled high with luggage, would drive up to the porch and a number of relatives would settle down in whichever room happened to be vacant, and if there was no room it did not really matter because the Western concept of a room of one’s own did not exist. Mattresses were put down on the floor in winter and string cots on the veranda in summer. Everybody was perfectly happy. The orthodox ate in the Indian kitchen and others joined Father for meals in the Western dining room. It did not seem strange to anyone. Nor was it strange for a whole family to travel to a distant town to attend the wedding of a relative or close friend.
It was one of the few reasons to undertake the effort and expense of a long journey. The ladies stayed away several weeks, and it was at marriages that one’s daughters were shown off and often betrothed, when girls of marriageable age were decked out in their best and able to meet eligible bachelors. This was possible among the Kashmiris for there was no purdah, and girls and boys met and mixed freely with one another.
The younger women of our family – my cousins’ wives, or bhabis, as they were called – were forward-looking for those days. Most of them spoke English and were interested in various activities outside the home. My cousin Rameshwari Nehru had… ‘
From The Scope of Happiness by
Vijaylakshmi Pandit
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FOOTNOTES :
As stated in the ‘Paper 2 : Marriage‘, the System should facilitate couples having children and raising them well. In an ideal land, the overall system would be such that this is easy. –Such that this can happen as a matter of course, in the normal course of life.
That should be a top priority, a raison d’ etre of the Constitution and the Laws of the land, of the State and its institutions.
Although even if the ‘system’/environment is adverse, the couple should make every effort, ensure that they have children/a child and raise them well.