I came out of St. Andrews Auditorium to find my driver and housemaid desperately trying to reach me to inform me that Jaideep, my son, was trying to call me from Delhi. They almost immediately succeeded in putting me on a guilt trip that my phone was switched off for a couple of hours while attending a school event that was ironically around the theme of the generation gap. Apparently, he had had an exciting idea to bounce off and it had never happened that he couldn’t reach his mom. Just to add here that Jaideep is 35 years and a father of three kids himself. Some context!
Blame Yourself For Parenting A Generation That Can’t Stop Wanting
This is how it all begins, doesn’t it! The expectations, the disappointments, the guilt. Year after year I address parents of Grade 11 and try to prepare them for life as a parent in the most transformational years of their children’s life. I see experienced parents with older children nodding, while there’s a look of disbelief on many new faces. How can our children drift away from us, is what they are thinking.
Their children are still their ‘bachhas‘ who they have hand-held till now. No parent believes it can happen to them. We’ve been talking about generation gap for eons but really, the extent to which the divide has widened, due to rapid technological change around us, hasn’t hit home to many. Of course, the reality check happens, as it will, for all of us. We all deal with it in our own ways but wouldn’t it be better if we know that we aren’t alone in this challenge!
So this year we went a step ahead and involved the children themselves in communicating the same message. It served multiple ends. Besides giving the children an opportunity to bond over their performances, showcase their creativity, it also brought home to them the realization of how parents are the hardest hit when the communication at home breaks down and gave them a sense of onus and responsibility. We’re all surrounded with a clutter of communication, but the most important one is breaking down.
Are modern day parents using technology to their convenience?
As rightly said by our eminent guests that evening, Dr. Kaizaad Kotwal, the versatile actor and his theatre artist mom, Mahabanoo-Modi-Kotwal, that listening to each other, finding common interests, asking questions, sharing lighter moments, laughing and crying together, makes for beautiful relationships. Humour bridges gaps, across generations. We are all unique, yet we live in harmony if “‘sometimes we indulge, sometimes we adjust; sometimes we agree, sometimes we squabble, but at all times we create and strengthen the bond that ties us.”
Image source: Rick Mckee cartoons
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Priyanka Bakhru
Neha Mital
Mansi Zaveri
Janani S Koushik
KSP Team
