By one of my client, Mr. K C Khanna

(By K.C. Khanna)

FAMILY HOUNER IS THE FAMILY PROPERTY OF THE HIGHTEST VALUE

In recent past family members who creates love and affections, trust and harmony and dismantle hatred, always used to appreciate other view points that bring prosperity and seek to add new dimensions to the relationship among themselves.

The tide is shifting. Families are no longer about unity. It is about individual isolation. Among the blood relations there is a collective paralysis of Will, Trust, periodic out breaks of suspicious and double speaks. They share the same intensity of hatred, suspicious, revenge among themselves. We are blindly following the West. We have made the West our role model, irrespective of whether the ideas are working for us.

The negative thinking and wrong impression of the present generation is that they consider and compare their parents with a ladder to climb up in life and once the goal is achieved either the ladder is thrown out or put in a corner, as if the parents are born to perform only duties and have no rights . Parents who have not saved for old age and are entirely dependent on their children are much affected. Thus yesterdays masters have become slaves and live a miserable life. Fathers appear to be worse off when it comes to communicating with their children. We must understand the parent does not belong to us; we belong to parents.

In certain cases, the parents are equally responsible for unrest in the family. They are not able to adjust themselves in the present environment where the influence of western culture has played a major role, in the living- style, relationship and behaviour. There are dramatic changes in the development of science and technology, pattern of livings, standard of education, culture and transportation etc. The media and internet service is also playing an important role by high lighting the events and happenings occurred any where in the world with in minutes. It has changed the entire thinking and approach in the day-to-day’s life and in living style. Actually our present education system teaches students how become talented and successful, though it is equally important to learn the virtue of patience, peace, tolerance and gratitude. Life in the metros has become faster. Due to the long working hours and traffic hazards people gets tired resulting frustration and misunderstanding which is also the cause of prevailing family problems. . Certain parents expect more attention and tolerance etc, from the children, which some times due to some reason not possible and they get upset. The dowry system, disrespect towards women, false ego and rigid and orthodox thinking etc. still prevails in some parents. Instead building bridge, they complaint that road is bumpy. As such any move, to over come the misunderstanding miserably fails and the gaps widen.

Another reason for the differences in the family is mainly due to unnecessary interference of the in-laws. The trend is, that after marriage girl always likes to have frequent visits to her parents’ house but would not like her sister-in-law to visit her parents and would rather object. The couple is guided by their in-laws for differences in the family. The parents are, as such, morally bound to give the proper counseling and advice to the children to behave gracefully and avoid unnecessary tension and differences in the family for a peaceful life.

Another main factor for family dispute is the assets of the parents. The law permits equal shares of the all the moveable and unmovable property of the parents to all the children. But as per old precedents, the sons still do not want to part with the assets with the sisters resulting courts cases.

Ironically, if the parents have the assets, some smart/excited children try to grab it, while the parents are alive. In case they have nothing to give, none of the children would like to take the responsibility to take care of them.

The simple truth is that one can have differences, but still be friends or relatives. Let brothers and sisters should not forget that once they were part of the same family and enjoyed equal love and affections from parents. Either they should live together as brothers and sisters or dies together as fools. Collective efforts should be made to move towards normalisation in relationship until terms and promises are achieved. We must lower the wall so that conversations continue with a desire for normalization and respect for each other. Instead giving excuses and blaming try to spread love and affections among themselves and dismantle hatred, revenge and anger.

For living a peaceful and tension free family, some thoughts are:

v Live in peace and let the others also live in peace.

v Create habit to forgive and forget in relationship.

v Hatred brings sufferings, and loving and kindness brings happiness.

v Without give and take there is no life.

v Goal should be for creation of a modern family.