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We
all wax eloquent about the important role that families
play in making an individual what s/he is. We all
know and acknowledge that families are the first and
maybe the most crucial socializing unit in any person's
life. But do we really realize its true value?
The
joint family has been a cornerstone of Indian culture,
but as time passes its face is changing, bringing
new challenges for the young and the old. In this
section we will be exploring the joint and nuclear
family structures. Their respective advantages and
their limitations. |
| The
ways in which joint families support us in raising
our children and how that same support sometimes creates
conflict. How nuclear families burden parents with
more responsibilities but also provides them with
the freedom to chart their own and their children's
lives without interference from others. |
Let's
start from the very beginning, it is a very good place to
start. There was a time when joint families were not even
a norm. They were just the way things were. Parents, their
children, their children's spouses, their grandchildren, dog,
cat, (cow too, in the rural Indian context), all lived together
in harmony. The men worked and the women of the family handled
the home front. The financial travails were shared by all
(if there was no discord or animosity amongst the family members)
and though the women did not feel the need to (or were not
encouraged to) go out for work, they were comforted by the
knowledge that their children were safe in the cocoon of grandparental
affection. The children also grew up taking the support system
provided to them for granted, that we in our present urban
lifestyles crave for so much and try and seek from our friends,
our counselors, our medicines, and our alcohol.
To
cut a long story short, all was quiet on the Western Front,
and then global warming happened. Tempers soared, as did temperatures
and the amount of cultivable land available started falling
short of the number of mouths that had to be fed. This along
with the fact that more and more industries were coming up,
meant that people started to move out of their family structures
and find their own place under the sun. They moved to cities.
But gradually they realized, as they do even now, that while
cities provide some kind of fulfillment of economic aspirations,
they take a lot more away.
To fulfill their aspirations, people had to work long hours,
with spouses finding very little time to even be with each
other, let alone other relatives, in their drive to make ends
meet. Alone and over worked, they began to find themselves
with no support systems to lean on. Large family structures
gradually broke and nuclear families began to be formed.
Family
and community networks profoundly influence our values and
attitudes in ways that we are not even conscious of. Following
are some of the ways in which joint and nuclear families impact
on our lives:
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Joint
families are like microcosms of an entire world. They
are the first training grounds, where people learn interpersonal
skills. People in joint families learn lessons of patience,
tolerance, cooperation and adjustment. They also learn
what it means to take collective responsibility. One for
all and all for one.
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When
young people live with senior members of the family from
the time they are born, they grow up appreciating, admiring
and loving them. They also learn to adjust because they
realize that as younger people, they have the flexibility
of adjusting and changing whereas older people often get
stuck in patterns of functioning.
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In
a joint family a child learns and is reared by a number
of people, thus dividing work, saving time and creating
a spectrum of exposure and awareness.
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Comprising the father, the mother and their children,
the nuclear family threw the children and the parents
together, for better or for worse, with no other family
members in their space. Now the entire responsibility
of what kind of an individual the child grew up to be,
lay on the parents. And the differences between the two
family set-ups started showing up starkly, in the personality
of the child, as well as on the health, mental and otherwise,
of the parents. The other features to get affected were
the finances of a family, the quality of time spent together,
their closeness, individuality, power equations etc.
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While in joint families, financial
problems were shared by all the members of the family,
as were financial gains, in nuclear families, financial
problems often had to be shared independantly.
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The joint family functioned on the
basis of "one for all and all for one". The family, provided
support for the aged and infirm, and was an insurance
against unemployment for some members.
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Some
people may feel that in a joint family structure "interdependence
is fostered, self-identity is inhibited and a conservative
orientation, resistive to change, is rewarded".
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In
a joint family authority and respect for elders are paramount,
and the family unit controls members in all areas of their
lives. Traditionally, all familial, emotional, professional,
financial, or health-related difficulties are handled
within the family.
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The
joint family set up encourages the setting aside of individual
desires for the good of the family.
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An
extended family makes a better home environment for its
impressionable young members, by providing them with a
basic, yet very important, learning ground for their future
successes. Living with, or frequent exposure to an extended
family creates a naturally better home environment than
a nuclear family alone.
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Children
in nuclear families rely on peers or indifferent baby
sitters to fill the void between school time and home
time while their one or two parents are at work. However,
when growing up with an extended family, children are
looked after by people they love and trust thereby finding
it easier to replace the absent parent.
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In
today's nuclear-family-centric society, where individualism
is worshipped almost to the extent of obsession, it would
be difficult for people to find the time to be social
with one another, leave alone looking after each others'
needs. But when one lives in an extended family environment
the practice of sharing and collaborating becomes a part
of life.
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There
may be too many authority figures in a joint family set
up. This could lead to chaos and conflict for adults and
children.
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Joint
families also mean hierarchies and power equations and
these hierarchies are very strong. This can put younger
members of the family in a vulnerable position. Many a
times one finds that there is a lot of resentment in the
younger family members towards the older members. This
resentment usually occurs when the younger generation
feels that the older generation is not allowing it to
acquire its own identity and status, separate from that
of the older members. A joint family could function like
a corporation or the army or any organization where power
is maintained by a few and hierarchy is important. These
networks and power dynamics also create spaces for abuse
and exploitation. The 'family' is perceived as larger
than the individual, so cases of child sexual abuse, domestic
violence, or other forms of harassment within the family
are not divulged or raised for fear of dishonoring the
family name.
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If
one were to look at the joint family set up from a child's
point of view, one will see that it could be a mixed bag.
The child would be exposed to the love and affection of
all the members of the family, would be taken care of
in the absence of its parents and a single child would
not miss a sibling because there would be cousins present.
But conversely, if there are several children in the joint
family, there is a tendency for parents to make comparisons
and to club all the children together rather than provide
individual attention.
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In
a nuclear family, the responsibility of the culture, traditions
and values that a child grows up with, lies on the parents.
Many a times, due to lack of time, parents are unable
to devote enough time to this aspect of child rearing.
This problem is not faced in a joint family set-up, where
culture, tradition and values get transmitted from a whole
range of people to children.
The
end of the above section brings us to a very important aspect
of any family - parenting. And here also, one finds significant
differences in the forms it takes on in a joint family set-up
and in a nuclear family set up.
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In
a nuclear family set up if both parents are working they
may have to leave their children alone with caretakers
for given lengths of time. This can mean children being
brought up by care centres or domestic help. It can also
mean that children are left vulnerable to sexual abuse
and violence.
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Parents
may also have to deal with attention-related problems
which are usually by-products of nuclear family systems,
where the child, finding both his parents absent, and
no one else from the family, usually resorts to attention
seeking behavior. Being sad, insolent, reclusive and so
on. In a joint family system families take responsibility
for each others children.
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Most
parents want to bring up their children with their own
set of values and principles, without any "interference".
This is something that parents may find to hard to do
in a joint family set up.
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- Parents
of nuclear families should try and make efforts so that
their children are close the rest of the relatives. These
efforts could include taking them on weekly visits, encouraging
them to go for sleep-overs at their cousins' houses and
so on. Festivals and cultural occasions could be celebrated
with extended family, as these are also times when cultural
values could be passed on to the children.
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In
a nuclear family, if parents are conscious of the fact
that they are not being able to spend adequate amounts
of time with their children, they either end up trying
to discipline them in the little time that they have with
them, thereby distancing themselves from their children,
or they try to compensate for their absence, monetarily
and materially. In a nuclear family, there is always a
fear that the parents will either be indifferent or be
too smothering. Either of these two extremes are not right.
In a joint family, the presence of a large number of siblings
and other elders means that the child is not left wanting
for attention and is being disciplined regularly by other
members of the family.
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Differences
in discipline
styles, norms of work, leisure, personal attitudes etc.
are common in any family system, but in joint families
diversity may not always be encouraged. There is more
space for individuality and individual self-expression
in a nuclear family set-up. In a joint family conflicting
styles may confuse and contradict each other, leading
to a child who may not always know what to trust and who
to believe, especially when parenting is taken on by more
than two people.
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In
a joint family a child has something that is extremely
crucial in its growing up years - company. One thing to
be worried about is that in today's day and age, given
the restrictions of space, finances and resources, more
and more parents are deciding on having just one child.
This one child norm, coupled with the nuclear family phenomenon,
means that the child is more often than not, lonely and
thus susceptible to go looking for company elsewhere....and
they could find the wrong company. Kids who are strongly
connected to the family and home are less likely to go
astray due to peer pressure or end up doing things that
they know deep down to be wrong.
It
would be wonderful if we could say that one family structure
works better for women than another. But, the reality is that
in both joint and nuclear families women can feel helpless,
claustrophobic, and isolated, because of the family dynamics.
Similarly, either structure could create a sense of well-being.
Yet, in order to address the issue, certain generalizations
would have to be made.
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First
and foremost, in today's fast moving times, women have,
in a joint family system, a support system that they can
turn to. Of course, they also have to contend with hierarchies
and power equations, which are as strong as time and tradition.
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In
a joint family she has the support structure that she
needs, she is surrounded by other women and she can turn
to them whenever she needs help. But at the same time,
when the hierarchies and the power equations are so firmly
entrenched, she may find herself disadvantaged, because
there are not only male members who can dominate over
her, there are also older women. Women (especially new
entrants) may feel more disadvantaged in a joint family
system because there are many people who control her environment
because they are further up in the hierarchy of decision-making.
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In
a nuclear family, there is relatively more autonomy. She
has the freedom to enjoy an intimacy, a closeness with
her spouse and her children without having to include
others. In a study, women in nuclear families reported
more positive sexual relationships with their husband
than did women living in extended/joint families. ("Experiences
and Perceptions of Marital Sexual Relationships among
Rural Women in Gujarat, India" - By Archana Joshi, Mrinalika
Dhapola, Elizabeth Kurian and Pertti J. Pelto). In a joint
family set up, interaction, even intimacy with one's own
spouse may be governed by protocol.
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When
a child is born, the woman has to commit a tremendous
amount of time to looking after the child. In a nuclear
family the mother may not have the help of other members
of the family for looking after the child.
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In
a nuclear family unit, there is less pressure on the value
of an 'obedient' daughter-in-law than is often observed
in most joint families. Since value is placed on the individual's
own abilities and attributes, women in nuclear families
may be more likely to take the initiative in carving out
their own identities. On the other hand, in nuclear households,
women's mobility is limited since they have to take responsibility
for the full burden of housework, while there is much
more sharing of tasks between women in extended households.
While
we are talking about the young and the adventurous and the
rebellious, we should spare a thought for the aged. A rapidly-growing
concern in Indian societies is of care of the elderly. In
a society that was known for the ways in which it cared for
its elderly, one is seeing a fast rising number of old age
homes. The fragmentation of the joint family system is one
of the key reasons that traditional forms of care for older
people are eroding.
Since in a joint family system, there are lots of people to
take care of and give attention to elderly people, it has
been discovered that old people living in joint family systems
are generally healthier that those living in unitary families.
The elderly people of a unitary family are 21.6% less likely
to have good health than the elderly person living in joint
families. The breaking down of the Indian Joint family has
in many ways left our elders isolated, who, without the love
of their grandchildren and care of other family members may
feel helpless and desolate. In the nuclear family time constraints
and increased responsibilities often lead to older people
being ignored more. This obviously effects the quality of
care and attention that elders receive.
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If
there are problems between the members of the family,
they could try and sort it out by speaking about it. This
is also important learning for children in the family,
because they will learn the importance of communication
and conflict resolution.
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The
various heads of authority should try and put up a united
front before children, even if they disagree amongst themselves.
Any disunity or contradictions, especially in discipline,
will give the child a scope to manipulate situations and
individuals.
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The
position and authority of the parents of a child should
not be undermined by other family members.
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Decisions
should be taken following dialogue amongst family, rather
than unilateral decisions that are then imposed on others.
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While
the benefits of joint family set-ups should be recognized
and appreciated, it should be seen that the benefits accrue
only when the members of the joint family get along with
each other, respect each others and each others' space,
are affectionate towards each other and so on. If the
above mentioned features are missing, the joint family
system could turn out to be a curse instead of a boon.
In such a scenario a nuclear unit could be much more healthy
to be in.
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