I don't think so.
Why you ask? Because somehow, as a generation, we millennials know we can't be perfect, the absolutely hardworking, flawless individuals who their children could look up to. We cannot be what our parents were for us.
As a millennial and a new parent, I have made a realization. I think we will be a different generation of parents. We will be individuals who will respect the individuality of our children. We’ll be able to give them quality experiences over mundane ‘value adding’ activities, like mandatory visits to relatives’ homes or hours and hours of pooja-paath. I'd love to think that we will be able to provide them with more options than we received, to bridge tradition and modernity into their minds, and enable our children to find semblance in their own company.
The respect that our children will learn may not come from ceremoniously touching the feet of elders. Maybe they’ll learn that respect doesn’t mean keeping quiet even when you know you’re right, just so that you don’t offend a ‘grown-up’. They'll learn that speaking your mind doesn't equal disrespect. The elders will earn the respect from them as they'll be seen in action, engaging in intellectual discussions with them. Our children will learn to be sensitive towards themselves and their own parents, and be emotionally intelligent because they would actually be hearing the words sensitive and emotional in conversations, conversations that we will be having with them. One can hope, right?
I’m not sure how gentle or severe our parenting will be. Yes, we will not raise hands on our kids, but we will make sure they understand wrong from right. Having dealt with Sharmaji ka beta/beti conversations all our growing years, we know not to compare our kids and make them feel that they are any less than their friends or cousins, kids of our friends, or anybody in the whole wide world!
We'll do all that and more, through new ways that we learn and old ways that we don't see ourselves breaking free from. But I’m sure we will strive every day, to break free from the ‘one size fits all’ kind of parenting. With every passing day, I get more determined to become the parent my child can look up to. And for all of us, I hope that we will be able to unlearn all that is weighing us down, the generational trauma that we’ve been handed without anyone realizing. God willing, in the attempt to be a generation that is determined to raise kids who are emotionally-mentally strong and happy human beings, we become better and happier ourselves too.
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