The great Indian divide: Parents-Children conflict

In today’s India—buzzing with cricketers; other media-inflated sportspersons; Instagram reel-makers; YouTubers; aspiring singers; dancers and actors; stand-up comedians; social media influencers, and others of their ilk, all producing illusive hopes of instant money, name and fame for the gullible youth—a quiet war has been brewing every day in countless homes: a conflict between parents and their children.

This isn’t the typical generational clash over going out with boyfriends or girlfriends; wearing revealing clothes; hanging out with friends of dubious character for late night parties; or demanding iPhones. It’s deeper, more corrosive, and disturbingly one-sided. Because, while children have the megaphones of the fraudsters amongst the liberals and echo chambers in the social media; the voices of the parents, their anguish and their aspirations have been shoved into a dusty corner labelled “out-dated thinking.”

This article is addressed both to the parents as well as the kids. I will, without apology, say what must be said: Today’s Indian kids have become deeply unreasonable, and its high time someone spoke up for the ‘unheard voice’ of the parents. The parents’ perspective, drowned out in today’s narrative, deserves to be heard.

Kids’ Changed Value System

Not long ago, India was a conventional society. Kids tried to get as much education as their family circumstances and their own intellectual abilities permitted. After that, they tried to secure job according to their abilities. Admittedly, it was difficult even in that era. However, people did not resent what they got in life according to their abilities and circumstances.

However, now, in this age, the value system and aspirations of kids have changed. They are dazzled by shortcuts or unorthodox ways to earn quick money, name and fame. The conventional recognition does not matter to them anymore. They don’t mind someone being a school or college dropout but value him greatly if he made some money somehow.

In other words, success is no longer measured by your intellectual worth but by the money you make. It could be tolerated, but for the high risk of failure and their subsequent blaming the parents of life in general. After all, how many people out of 1.46 billion become successful film stars or singes or dancers, etc.? 

India is not America—and never can be

To all those woke kids who shout “my life, my rules,” let us be blunt: India is not the West. The societal pressure for recognition in the society and what the society perceives as success is abnormally great in India. In the USA, for example, nobody bothers if you are just a salesman in say Macy’s. In India, however, everybody bothers if you are just a gig worker for Zomato. They would bother you, your family and distant relations also as to why you could not become an engineer, doctor or government servant.

This is not just idle gossip; it’s social pressure that affects job opportunities, marriage prospects, and even mental health. The societal pressure is not abstract—it is visceral. This is the reason that many kids in the coaching centre town of Kota, Rajasthan (where there are scores of residential coaching institutes for engineering and medical entrance examinations) commit suicide every year. That’s why Indian parents are obsessed with secure careers. They know how brutal the cost of failure can be in this country. They have seen it. They are not chasing prestige for themselves. They are trying to shield you from shame at a later stage in life. Yet, children often misinterpret this as control. They accuse parents of stifling their dreams, of forcing them into paths they don’t desire.

The Issue of Social Respectability

You see, in life, one has to meet two conflicting requirements. The first is to earn enough to survive reasonably comfortably. The second is social respectability.

Talking of earning, even a prostitute could earn enough to survive comfortably. Let me put a brutal question to the kids. Chances are that you indeed enjoy watching ‘item numbers’ in films, featuring bar dancers, cabaret dancers or striptease dancers. That is how those films make their billions! However, be honest and tell me, would you like your sister, wife or mother to pursue the career of bar dancer, cabaret dancer, striptease dancer or adult film actress (popularly known as porn actress)?

In most places of the world, they are perfectly legitimate jobs. For your kind information, as per the law in India, even prostitution is not an offence—only soliciting in public is an offence! My question is would you like them to pursue one of those as career options?

Most probably, you would not want them to earn their living by using nothing but their ‘bare body’ for the titillation or pleasure of perverted males. Once again, the difference between becoming scientist, teachers, doctors, lawyers etc. instead of bar dancer etc. is that the former professions focus on the brain instead of the body. This is what social respectability entails. By getting good education and what was called a decent job (say, a white collar job) you earn that respectability.

I will explain with an example. Suppose your father or mother suddenly gets severe chest pain radiating to the left arm, the tell-tale symptoms of a heart attack. You hire a taxi immediately and rush to the hospital to see an interventional cardiologist. He diagnoses it as blockage in several arteries and proceeds to perform a bypass surgery. Your parent’s life is saved! Who would you respect and value more and be more grateful to—the cardiologist who performed that complicated bypass surgery or the taxi driver who took him to the hospital?

If your answer is the taxi driver, you are entitled to their view but, for God’s sake, do not lecture me on the dignity of labour, etc. I know all that. In a democratic country like ours, we do know that every citizen, irrespective of his/her standing or job in life, is entitled to exactly the same legal rights. I am, however, talking of the respect from the bottom of your heart that you would accord to a person in the society.

Aspiration versus Indulgence

For decades, Indian parents toiled through shortages, inflation, poor infrastructure, and backbreaking jobs—not for their own pleasure, but for their children’s future. Success wasn’t optional; it was survival. Education was sacrosanct, and conventional careers in medicine, engineering, law, or government service, etc. were recognized labels to stability and societal respect for educated people.

Today, those very aspirations are mocked. The modern kid, brought up with gadgets in hand and Netflix as philosopher, insists: “I want to live life on my terms.” That’s fine. But when this “fun-first” approach leads to failure, depression, or burnout—as it often does—who gets blamed? Not the flawed decisions, not the illusions created by social media, but the parents—the  very people who paid for the school, the iPad, the guitar lessons, the hostel, and sometimes even the bail bonds when the rave party led to a police raid.

There is a constant tussle between the aspirations of parents with regard to their children in terms of ‘success’ in life and the children insisting on living life their own way. The kids are focusing more on having fun in life. Theoretically, it would have been fine. It’s their life and they have full right over it. However, things get complicated because kids these days have started blaming their parents for all their subsequent failures in life.

Worse, if the child happens to succeed—howsoever rarely—suddenly the story becomes one of solo triumph. Parents are erased from the narrative, reduced to background noise. “I made it despite them,” not “because of them.” If you succeed, don’t erase that. If you fail, don’t rewrite the blame.

Long-Term view: a skill this generation has lost

Every parent knows and the duffer kids must know:  Life is not an Instagram reel. It is a marathon of mortgage EMIs, medical emergencies, and job insecurity to name a few. Kids today, however, live as if there’s no tomorrow. Their decisions—be it in love, education, or career—are shaped by impulse, not foresight. I feel that the parents are justified in taking a long term view, whereas the kids are living in the moment only—completely unable to think of life 10 years hence.

In fact, this is the reason of many marriages failing after a few years. It happens very frequently that girls marry boys in the first flush of passion, may be captivated by their flashy motorbikes, their singing, their jokes, their dancing in parties, or whatever is their concept of charm. However, few years down the line they realize that the most important thing in life is sustained monthly income. The initial fun-filled life is not sufficient to meet the fundamental requirements of life.And yet, this very prudence is now painted as “controlling” or “killing the vibe.”

I suggest the readers must watch a 2018 film called Jalebi by Pushdeep Bhardwaj. In this, a budding writer and an independent, progressive woman (Aah! The quintessential liberal type!) from Mumbai visits Delhi with her friend to research for her upcoming book. She meets a local guide, who makes a living by showing around tourists his old house, which has some historical value. His vivacity and charm makes her fall in love with him instantly and she goes on to marry him quickly. However, she soon discovers that living only on the income and business of showing around tourists the same old house is not as ‘exciting’ in the long run as it appeared first. And, this becomes the bedrock on which the marriage eventually shattered.

It’s your Life, sure, but then it’s your Failure too

The usual refrain of the kids these days is: It is my life, I want to do whatever I want; that I want to pursue my passions in life, and so on. Fine. Then own the consequences too.

The larger question is do the parents have any role in it? Can they be responsible parents and yet leave the kid to decide for himself or herself? For all you know, the kids’ decision about their life may turn out to be utterly wrong. Suppose, a child pursuing his undergraduate course suddenly tells his parents one fine day that he wants to drop out of college to become a film actor, a theatre artist, a painter, a singer, a poet, or a comedian, etc. Is it not incumbent upon the parents to tell the kid that the chances of succeeding that way are statistically exceedingly low? Moreover, the careers there are very short-lived. The story of the engineering student who dropped out of college to compete in Indian Idol, only to lose both his degree and his singing dreams, is not an anomaly—it’s a cautionary tale. There are hundreds of girls who, because they are beautiful or are prepared to shed their clothes, may get a couple of roles in C-grade films. After those couple of roles, they are consigned to the dustbin of history. Some hang around for some time as escorts or undercover prostitutes, but that too does not last for long.

Parents see these risks clearly, and their insistence on conventional paths is not about denying freedom but about ensuring survival.

Kids must realize that there is a difference between ‘work for living’ and ‘indulgence for fun’. You cannot jump headfirst into a fantasy career and then blame your parents when it doesn’t pan out.

What exactly do they want from their Parents?

Do they want the parent-child relationship to be reduced to be a contractual one: That you have produced me out of your sexual enjoyment and hence you are legally obligated to provide for me? The accusation that parents “enjoyed sex without protection” and must therefore bear all consequences is not just unfair—it’s dehumanizing. It reduces parenthood to a biological act. Still, if you insist, it’s OK, fine. But, for how long should the contract run? A view could be that parents are obliged to care for you until you become a legal major. Should parents kick out the kid the moment he becomes a major? But what would happen if the kid is not able to land a job by that age and fend for himself. Would he still expect to be provided for by the parents? Would he not abuse them if they left him out in the cold to starve?

 Do they want caregivers or just cash dispensers? When children demand endless support while rejecting advice, they place parents in an impossible position.

Parents or ATMs?

Kids today want unconditional financial support—but with zero emotional accountability. If parents discipline them, they’re toxic. If they don’t, they’re negligent. If they spend too much on themselves, they’re selfish. If they spend too little on them, they’re stingy. If they save for retirement, they’re hoarding. If they don’t, they’re burdens.

In India, where pension systems are broken and healthcare is expensive, if parents expect to depend on their children in their old age—what’s wrong in that? If they spend all they have on their coaching, degrees, weddings, and gadgets, is it too much to expect a little support when their knees give way? Today’s children scoff at this. They want Western-style independence but in Indian rupees and with Indian subsidies. They want the perks of global citizenship with the responsibilities of a toddler. That is not progress. That is parasitism.

Kids have become so unreasonable that if the parents could afford them and put them in a good boarding school, they later say that the parents put them in boarding school so as to save themselves the trouble of bringing up the child and so that they could merrily carry on with their party life. You may recall the same argument given in the film Bobby (1973).

On the other hand, if most middle or lower class parents could afford only a government school, the kids complain later that they could not succeed in life because they did not get the best education. Kids have now developed a ‘weaponized victimhood’.This is emotional blackmail masquerading as trauma. Parents don’t have infinite resources or infinite wisdom. But most try to do their best. And yet, in every scenario, they get blamed.

Criticizing Parents for not being super-achievers

Another cruel irony: kids blame their parents for not being rich, not being well-educated, or not giving them a mansion. Parents are often taunted by their children for their own perceived “failures.” A kid might sneer, “You didn’t succeed in life, so why are you lecturing me for not scoring enough?” This is not just cruel—it’s illogical. Parents have every right to want better for their children, even if their own lives didn’t unfold as planned.  This is so inhuman and so unfair. Not everybody can become a billionaire businessman or a great scientist. Yet, the parents do have a bloody right to aspire that their kids should do better than them in life. There is nothing wrong in this aspiration.

May be the parents’ situation was different when they were trying to make a mark for themselves in life. May be they hit a roadblock they could not move. They have a right to expect that their kid must have a secure future. If he cannot, it is bad luck. But the parents cannot be blamed that they imposed their will forcibly on the kids. After all, the options in India are limited anyway. Every parent has a right to dream that their child will do better. That’s not oppression—it’s hope. Even if they failed, they have earned that hope through pain, effort, and years of unpaid labour. To mock their aspirations is not rebellion—it is ingratitude.

Why this Generation is failing, and will fall hard

Indian parents today are caught in a storm of unrealistic expectations, societal pressure, and their children’s defiance. They are not perfect—they make mistakes, misjudge situations, and sometimes push too hard. But their intentions are rooted in love and a deep understanding of India’s unforgiving socio-economic reality.

Granted, to some extent, the kids are misled by the name and fame which a few cricket or film stars earn or what some social media influencers do. But, in the end, they cannot blame everything on social media. To watch or not watch a film or a cricket match is their decision. Whether to go crazy after a star is their decision. I maintain this generation is not able to decide wisely.

For every start-up success, there are a million jobless youth wasting their lives. For every influencer, there are a million followers who waste hours scrolling. They binge on escapism, worship mediocrity, and call any criticism “trauma.” They mock discipline. They resent effort. They celebrate rebellion, but not responsibility. Let’s not romanticize this stupid generation.