BEFORE YOU GET MARRIED…

First of all, you youngsters have to realize that you have not been fed, educated and taken care for because you are a liability of your parent. You have been looked after because you are loved and cherished as the child of your parents. You were not their responsibility, you were their choice. They chose to love you. The umbilical chord that was literally cut didn’t separate you from the warmth of your mother, nor the increased candles on your birthday cake have reduced the protectiveness your father feels for you. The emergence of a life partner only means you shall share with him/her the life that’s been given by your parents!

You have a right over your life and the way you live it. The choice of your life partner is solely yours and nobody denies that. But, considering your parents also as benefactors of your marriage and as your prime well-wishers, it asks of you to pay heed to their words too. The choice could be yours, but give them also a reason to rejoice. Discuss with them your wants, your needs and necessities; nobody shall want you happier than them. If not at the first instance, they shall gladly accept by continuous efforts.

FOR PARENTS

The parents in India have been made to believe that everything else of their child is the child’s wish but the wedding should take place according to their’s. A son or daughter who does not pay heed to the parent’s word is excused on all grounds except marriage. Indian men are ideally expected to be not to refuse parent’s wishes. This becomes betrayal to the parents. Children are not your right but they are individuals with their own life. Parent’s choices should not be forced upon them. They have to be taught to differentiate between the right and the wrong, but not compelled to follow your ideals.

Your child’s choice of his life partner shall never be the tool to measure his love for you.
Being parents is mastering the sense of timing. There comes a time when you have to let your child go and hurl himself against the world. There also a time to wait till its all over to help him by picking up every piece and bring him together.

The problem arises because every parent is very much protective of their child and wants to defend him / her from any force of the world. To them the child is not another individual but an extension of their own, while the child thinks he is an individual of his own and his parents are hampering his rights.