When my sister in law living in Canada told me that 11th of February 2013 was declared a holiday by their government as a Family Day so that everyone working or studying got a long weekend, I was totally surprised. The reason for declaring this holiday was to afford an opportunity to everyone in a family to be together on the day. This may be relevant for that country, as children leave homes to be on their own in their late teens and they and their parents would be busy with their own activities. The family life like the one we have in India, hardly exists there.
In India we are still very much family oriented and we do have strong ties with our parents. But will it continue in the generations to come? I personally have my apprehensions on this, as when we look around, we do see the bonds weakening. In our days, although the concept of joint family was on the wane, the family ties were certainly stronger than it is now and we had good bonding not only with our immediate family members but with our extended family of grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. In our childhood days we would go out to play in the evenings after school but get back home before the sunset to have a wash and be ready to assemble in the Pooja room for prayers. It was joint prayers by all the children.
Among the Christian families the parents also joined in the prayers and the whole family prayed together. This routine was specially so among families in Kerala. After that it was time for home work followed by dinner. The dining table was the venue for talking about the day spent. The maxim was “the family that eats together stays together!” In the next generation, with the television becoming a part of the drawing room, the practice of eating together at the dining table has almost disappeared from the families and it is more of a buffet with a plateful of food being taken to the sofa and being eaten while watching TV.
In fact, with the choice of each family member differing on the programmes, it becomes literally a scene of fights for the remote control of the TV set and arguments on the channel surfing. There is no time to sit together and talk on the happenings of the day. In India, the television has a big role in loosening the bonds of the typical Indian family! One sees that the present generation of young parents do not have the kind of attachment we of our generation had with our parents and siblings. The kids they are bringing up now are going farther and the attachment is diminishing over the years.With the increase in the number of working mothers, the quality time being spent together is getting reduced. The mobile phone has become the villain now. I have witnessed many a scene of the father busy on the cell phone, the mother watching TV and the children either on the computer or telephone/cell phone , when they should have been normally sitting together and talking.