Table of Contents
Parents
1. We did so much for our children, sacrificed our life for them, gave them whatever they needed, and now they don’t care for us.
2. Leave apart not caring, they don’t want to even talk to us.
3. Forget talking, they don’t even respect us.
4. Respect? Our children don’t even consider we exist.
5. They don’t tell us their problems. They think we are stupid.
6. Is this what we deserve at this age?
7. Mostly fighting against several medical conditions.
Youth
1. Everyone is fighting some battle or the others, some emotional, some financial, some growth disorders of children, some marital turmoils, and of course their own deteriorating health.
2. Parents only questions and advice. They are always ready to make us feel like a looser. Why share? to get useless advice? If they knew a thing, they should have fixed their lives.
3. Parents only want to remind us how much they have done, and want to still control as if we are still infants.
Sons
1. Who were never taught the meaning of life but were told to become more successful than XYZ(brother, cousin or anyone).
2. A large number of sons are venting their entire inner suppressed passive aggression on their mothers.
3. For a large number of sons today any of the following:
a) My mother dumped me in childhood to pursue her career.
b) I never saw my parents loving, always fighting.
c) They are more interested in the social status of how successful their son is and that’s all.
4. A large number either hate their father, or emotionally detached or are still afraid of their father’s abuse and aggression.
Daughters
1. Talks to mother daily, and after the call gets triggered.
2. When do not talk to mothers, get disturbed.
3. Discussions are 10% good feelings, and 90% comparisons, and discussion about others.
4. I need everything: Husband, Love, Child, Good Life, Parents, Child’s Success, Career, and Parent’s validation that I am a good daughter(keep adding). (Oh yea, as if energy is infinite and you can digest 30 chapatis to be distributed to all).
The Teenage “Bro” Generation
1. Increasing paraphilia and incest.
2. Depressed, impulsive, 1 million dreams, 0 patience, demanding, cranky, indisciplined.
Husband and Wife
1. Busy.
2. Seeking emotions on WhatsApp from someone else.
3. Sex? What’s that? Too tired. (becomes busy with WA).
4. Conversation? What to talk?
A Family Today in A Nutshell
Everyone is suffering in silence, with no ability to even understand why, and expecting someone to understand their suffering and become an emotional savior. “Have you reached home?”, “eaten food?”, as if life has nothing other than questioning. Passive aggression, unable to vent out, stress, worry, insecurities, and fear.
No one seems to know what, why, or how to discuss and solve core life issues. So best, avoid!
How Can Middle Class Represent the Whole Nation?
Social engineering has a simple rule. The highest rate of successful childbirth is directly correlated to income. And as the income goes down, the chances of a broken family go higher(and vice versa).
The key reason for this unique dynamic (called socioeconomic rule:- a case study is an American Black neighborhood) is that
1. When income is low, people are together, struggling to increase their income. (This is family bonding, but rather bonding of struggle).
2. Because the focus is on money, not family(values+future+assets+growth), even when financial status improves, the family doesn’t(read why black neighborhood has more luxury cars in America)
So, social engineering has a simple clause, whatever trend is seen in higher-income families, will be seen in lower-income groups, as they are emulating.
Strong families grow better(in most metrics), and weaker families lose it all, slowly but eventually.
Why Are We Seeing This Family Distress? Is Information Overload to Blame for This?
wherever there is Mythane gas, there would be chances of asphyxia. Someone not dying inside a manhole is not validation that Methane is harmless. It is rather a self-forced ignorance, which if kept is not going to change either the nature of the methane or the outcome of asphyxia.
Neurologically, no one learns anything useful to be used in life unless hunger or existence is at stake because Neuroplasticity is directly correlated to insufficient energy, rather than energy excess.
When Britishers left India, the average life expectancy was 32. So our grandfather’s generation had to battle hard for survival, and thus had too much learning, and stories.
Now life expectancy is over 78, and so, there is less stress of survival, and so less learning and stories.
As stories bind tribes and families, by fundamental, that bonding will weaken.
So, it doesn’t even need any studies. A simple model and then validating the model in History(like 1378 BCE end of the Bronze Age), 318 BCE Macedonia, end of a Mughal era, etc is enough to obtain the current socio-family dynamic.
Has Work from Home Lead to The Current Situation
When work comes home, the home goes to work.
Our brain works only and only and only one way.
So, when work is not for satisfaction, but a job and a means to acquire materials, the family also is not for satisfaction but is a means to pursue pleasure. When money defines “work status”, the exact same money defines family status. When “love your career, not the work/role” cliches become common, the brain understands “love what you get out of the relationship, don’t love the relationship.”
The take now is “change if you are not satisfied.” Upgrade phone, change job, change cars. So the brain understands ok, change partner if no sex, change partner if less money, and change partner if no emotions.
The key is we are looking for everything, money, degree, pleasure, car, house, children, marriage, profession, and hoping for a balance. Each of them is a different brain pathway. The brain works in only one way and doesn’t balance.
If every dimension of life is not intertwined and yet independent, then that separation itself will be enough to break one’s life. One broken brain is enough to break a family. We are talking about an epidemic here!
The Effect of Constant Push to “Become Something” Rather than Knowing Oneself
From childhood, we were told that we have to become “something” to be alive. So, we became rich, poor, married, engineers, and doctors. But things are dead objects. We were children, and no one taught us that things are dead. We were forced to be dead. Then we became dead, only to realize that no we are alive, but we are dead. It is the trapped pain of being alive like a dead, or being dead even being alive(whichever way). So, we have to pray for death to liberate us, or life to rescue us.
It is like being on the event horizon of a black hole. Time stops. So you live for infinity, but you are dead already, and you see yourself from the past, so you lose the sense of time, life, and death.
The Effect of Globalized Corporations and Modern Jobs in Causing Family Distress
1) You earn a lot of money but give 16 hours to the industry.
2) Then you buy a car and a house, and a part(or a large part) goes back to the industry.
3) Then our children go to silly monkey schools, and money goes back to the industry.
4) Our children grow up to compete. We spend on tuition. Money goes back to the industry. Higher education and all.
5) In between, you save a lot of money. A part goes back to the industry through mutual funds and investment, and the rest goes back to the bank.
6) Then the body gives up. Again money goes to corporate through hospitals.
In between we live in a mirage, with real sweat, blood, time, hormone, and energy investment, but look back to see that everything still belongs to either corporations or institutions.
Parallel Correlation in Validating the Current Model
In a theoretical realm,
1. Weaken families are core to subclinical and suppressed depression.
2. Subclinical depression is one of the key markers for diabetes.
3. Increased rate of diabetes and decreased median age of the same.
4. Increased diabetes lowers the reproduction index.
5. Increasing rate of Diabetes in India since 1995, added with lower child/female and decreasing further, gives a good enough reason to worry about underneath inflammation in family dynamics.
Can The Effort of One or Two Generation Fix the Current Family Distress?
1) Irrespective of how much the young generation studies, seniors have always seen more life than them.
2) Education and books only trains(skills, or thinking ability) but doesn’t teach. The only teacher is life.
3) So, seniors in any generation would know more about life than the young generation.
4) However, if the senior generation spent their years thinking about money and materials, then they would see less life than they were supposed to.
5) In scenario (4), one with more access to materials, will feel more expert, and knowledgable.
6) In any case, the key problem then is the difference between biological age, and learning from life.
7) Because learning from life is minimum, so are the teachings, and discussions.
Now it is simple: If everyone brings down the difference between age and life’s learning, and life’s learning and skill knowledge, and material assets with life’s assets, there would be much more to talk.
So the real gap is the gap of life with “perceived good life.” As everyone bridges this gap, they bridge their interpersonal gaps too. Simple? No, impossible? A big no here too.
Will Innovation and Progress in Therapeutics Solve the Issue?
Family bonding has a ripple effect. So in medicine, family history matters the most. For instance, an individual with a family history of hypertension will have a high risk of hypertension in the future.
Taking a cue from the ripple effect of a condition in families, therapeutics do not help, as several individuals are affected to different degrees. So the path to betterment is working on self, finding peaceful time and silence. When we learn to converse without questioning, arguing, advising, and sharing stories and learnings rather than feelings, everyone heals and benefits.
Conclusion
Multi-generation Psychological ripple effect, which starts from the family, and then spreads to society at times gets harder to resolve.
This is because those who did not see the problem coming are no more, and those who saw the problem, but thought that this will pass too are on the verge of leaving the world, and those who are actually living the problem do not know if they are living or already left the world.
So, one of the antidotes is the dose of reality and an effort that I am not going to be part of it, and will at least fix my own family. Then that becomes an example and others follow.
In my entire life, I have never seen such a huge amount of emotional distress, mistrust, worry, fear, negativity, and sadness in Indian families. Generation gaps are not new. Parents have been sent to Bridashram not from today. Life appears to become just a validation for Indian families now.
Babies are not born out of love. They are planned, and a large number is born even without any emotions because the baby is important to be seen in a happy married life, without any care for the fact that such babies will suffer for the rest of their lives.
Everyone wants to share. But the moment one share anything, he/she is flooded with advice and recommendations. Family members want to know about the life of the other members because they want to ensure that they have a better life than others.
Everyone is a victim, and others are preparators. No self-reflection, no self-correction. If you do not stop and take notice, pay attention, and try a course correction, you are going to see some devastating days ahead.
The society and country need young legs. If seniors were ever required to set aside their misplaced egos and help out the youth(not by words and advice, but with action), then its NOW.
You don’t know what’s coming. Do you?
