West vs East : Relationship and family values.

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the thing about not living with parents in old age changes the whole scenario.

why would a person marry and have kids when the kids wont be a asset for them in old age. when they cannot play with their grandchildren.

i think the whole theory of evolution and family, generation comes to standstill when kids move out, get own life, not take care of parents in oldage.

here in my country mostly traditional families live together. they live in joint family the sons with their parents and when a daughter in law gets married and comes she takes care of old parents, the parents take care of grandchildren till the time they are able take care of the grandchildren.

the whole family live together and the cycle continues. that way there is extended families, lot of people to help each other, support sytem, the elders manage the money they see to it that the younger generation are doing virtuous things. the families live together, eat together, pray together.

But in my case everything was topsyturvy. My father was not following any of this he was into alcohol, watching vulgar hollywood movies, reading vulgar novels, he wont respect elders and not treat children well.

the result is me. i am not much of part of my culture. THe people here find me different and i have to gel with them to learn what actually is my culture.

but nowadays there are lot of conflict in cities. especially parents dont want to indulge in grandchildren they find it burden they want freedom and dont want to be like servant serving kids first and then grandkids

because of this lot of married women are burdened with task of raising kids alone and they find it difficult without support.

lot of kids are addicted to mobiles, tv etc because they dont know what else to do.

overall there is deteriotion of family values. there are fights in marriages and lot of couples are drifting apart and there are lot of divorce.

but joint families were not all comfortable there were issues of heavy dowry demands, only male prodigy female child was killed, widows were condemned and isolated not allowed to remarry. harassment by inlaws. girls were not allowed to study and expected to learn household work and then do it in married house.

girls or women had no freedom, they were not allowed to speak, share or express their feelings, ideas, notions. so i was brought up that way but my father was enjoying things he wanted to enjoy

Yes and no. When I was a kid my grandparents spent a lot of time babysitting me. They really enjoyed spending time with me, always volunteering to take me to movies and other outings. When ever mum needed a break they were happy to have me at their house for a few days.

That was then. 20 years later things are different. We have a new generation of kids an the grandparents are from a different generation. Nowadays generation x is becoming grandparents and they do things differently compared with my baby boomer grandparents.

Another difference is that nowadays people have much longer careers. My grandparents when into semi retirement just after I was born. Nowadays people are often working full time through their whole 60s.

Also, mum didn't work. I'm all for women's lib in the workplace but I see a trend of mothers working lower paying jobs, while sending their kids to daycare centres that cost most of what they earn. If two thirds of your minimum wage goes to the daycare centre than you're working for less than minimum wage.

At the other end of the spectrum there's the upper middle class parents were both have a professional job. It's more financially justified in their case. But I think that having kids in before school care and after school care for hours per day can be exhausting for them.

Why exhausting? Because roughly half of kids are introverts. Extroverts recharge their energy from being around people and introverts recharge their energy from being alone. Being with people isn't painful for us introverts but it's tiring. It uses energy. Using this energy is for a little while is ok. Introverts can still be sociable. But being around your peers from 8AM to 6PM everyday is exhausting for introverts. They need their own space to feel relaxed and comfortable.

Maternity leave only lasts for a year and kids need time with their parents throughout their whole childhood. Having kids raised by daycare is collectivism. If we wanted that, we'd be back in the USSR sending our kids to Uncle Stalin's proletariat daycare centre.