Growing up in a Joint Family is a pleasure….

I feel that a joint family is the most fertile place that boosts the growth and development of a child. Joint families are like the first training grounds, where a child learns interpersonal skills. Children in joint families learn to be flexible in life, learn lessons of patience, tolerance, cooperation and adjustment because they have to live happily with people of different mentalities. They start to appreciate the fact that no two people in this world are exactly same; no two people can be equally good or bad as the other, at a very early age. At the same time they can enjoy their childhood too with lots of kids of their age group, who also happen to be their blood relations. No child would ever feel lonely in such a situation and also their innocence is sustained. This is never the case in nuclear families, where even toddlers participate in household discussions that take place between their parents. This makes them abnormally precocious and hence rarely loved by people.

In a joint family a child is reared and loved by a number of people, thus dividing work, saving time and creating a spectrum of exposure and awareness. The child has the opportunity of enjoying every small occasion with his/her elders. For working parents also, it’s a blessing to have reliable and trustworthy elders who can take care of the child when they are away for the day. I say this as there are nuclear families where the child gets deprived of love from the parents and become vindictive when they grow up. However, in a joint family with a lot of children growing up, there is bound to be constant comparison among cousins. This could lead to the development of unhealthy competition and feelings of envy among the tender minds.

It must be emphasized that nuclear families have their advantages also. There is more space for individuality and self-expression in a nuclear family set-up. Nuclear families make the child more self reliant and decisive as he/she is not as interdependent on a large number of family members to make decisions and take action. This independent streak can come in handy, as your child grows into an adult and has to make many decisions himself/herself. Communication channels between the child and parent can also be more open and transparent, in a nuclear family, as parents have their attention focused on their child, without having to divide their time with too many household responsibilities and between other members of the household.

At the end of the day, staying in a large family may rob your child off his/her personal space, and independence. Staying in a nuclear family for too long also can create a disconnect between your child and your extended family. I consider myself very lucky that, my parents never moved out of my forefathers’ ancestral house in south Kolkata, and hence I got the opportunity to grow up in a joint family. It is here that I have learned so many lessons of life. I wish every child gets to spend at least some part of their childhood amongst their grandparents and all paternal cousins. It would help them learn a few lessons for a lifetime.