As a traveler between countries and cultures, I like to compare different cultures with each other and like to see how people live in other countries, how they grow up and what of this stays deep in their mind and heart.
Of course people who travel like to see these things and when someone comes many questions naturally come up about how things are here in India. Once a friend of us asked when young people here feel to move out from their home, to have their own home.
I think of this and I really have to smile. I never moved out. I am living here with my parents and my grand-mother along with my two brothers who also never had any thought of moving out. It is not the concept here in India. It is just not in this culture that children will feel they should have their own flat now, just them alone.
It happens sometimes that the child goes to study somewhere else or gets a job somewhere else but they are not looking to go out of home. On the contrary they look for a way to be at home with their parents. A child will not at any age feel to leave the parents in the usual Indian living situation.
It is usual that the daughter marries and leaves the house but then she normally moves in with her husband and her in-laws. And when a boy marries, his parents welcome their daughter-in-law in their house.
So this is the concept here and it might feel strange for people in the west but in the same way Indians feel that the young man or woman who wants to move out from home must feel lonely, all by himself. This is one of the differences that you may notice when you come here.
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This made me think about the ways that families are “replaced” in middle class America when kids go off to school. In college different people take on different attitudes. There is, in addition to a “party” culture and even among that culture a large movement to create strong and healthy communities with the people you meet in college (at University). These people may work together especially after college. They live together, eat together, make it a point to talk about their emotions and thoughts together, have fun together, etc. It is a family of choice. That is to say you create a family with many people that you feel growthful around. This movement is growing, mostly unintentionally as western university students are forced to face an absence of family more and more often. It works out well for people from what I’ve seen and other great component is that you have family in different places in the world!
I have noticed this difference between cultures, and seen an in-between. When I went to Argentina, they have a tradition of keeping the children at home as they grow up, until they get married. Usually, the married couple finds a new home but it is very close by to their parents’ home. I thought this was a nice balance between the two extremes because the family still stays very close, but the couple can have the freedom to live on their own and start a next generation.The the thing that makes me sad about the Indian way is that it is always the bride who leaves her family to move in with her husband. If it was a choice, this would be fair. Or if the couple could go back and forth between homes, that would be a balance/compromise. But always forcing the woman to leave her family is a bit old-fashioned and sad. 🙁