In India Youngsters continue to live with their parents???
In India Youngsters continue to live with their parents???
In India 20 year old youngsters from financial constraints, mental health struggles continue to live and depend on their parents for support instead of forging independent paths unlike in U.S. UK etc.,
In India, conversations amidst parents and youth on moving out of the family home don’t go down so well.
Something changes in the midst of the aged of 18 and 20. After nearly two decades of living with guardians, one is imbued with a desire for freedom and independent decision making.
In the West, it is considered a rite of passage of the younger generation moving out to forge independent paths early on in adulthood.
However, in Indian culture, coddling youth till they are married off (and sometime even after it), is the norm. Moving out of homes, for most young people, constitutes a big conversation. And very often these conversations don’t go well.
There is no doubt over the merits of living with parents, especially in one’s developing years. According to a 2023-study published in Front Public Health, living with parents in younger ages is crucial to avoiding “higher risk of internet addiction, depression, anxiety, loneliness, suicidal ideation, drug abuse, wasting, stunting, and sickness.”
But what about when living at home sometimes comes at the cost mental health for youth with less-than-ideal family equations.
It isn’t a stretch to say that constrained freedom for an adult, feels akin to being caged at an age where one is meant to fly.
As for what’s next for young Indians with regards to their quest for greater freedom, the answer varies. For some they feel extremely unhappy with their living situation, moving out is a priority — but they know it’ll only happen sometime in the future. They can’t just pack their bags and leave because at the heart of it all, they know that their family want the best for them . They just don’t realise that what they think is the best for them is not the best for them. To make things more complicated, the financial privileges afforded to her through her family are also a factor in her desire to stick around and sustain a lifestyle she has gotten used to.
As the joint family structure is synonymous in Indian culture — and comes with its undeniable pros living away from one’s family is inevitably a heavy conversation. Most of us grow up surrounded by our grandparents or joint family for that same reason.
But is there something to living independently that the older generations have collectively missed out on?
Is there a fundamental freedom that is necessary to evolving as an adult that we seem to be neglecting? Only time will tell.
News Edit K.V.Raman
