For years, I have been ridiculing the concept of having special days for fathers and mothers. With the arrival of social media as a central figure of our lives, my dislike for such 'celebrations' only grew, thanks to people posting photos of them with their mothers and fathers. It's very ritualistic in nature.
All these years, I have been asking myself, "How is it possible for such events exist?". That was the wrong question. The question is, "Why do they exist?".
I will relate an incident that might explain this phenomenon.
A school in America really wanted parents to pick up their kids after school very punctually. At first, they put social pressure as an incentive for the parents to be on time. Teachers would stare at the parents who weren't on time or other such acts were carried out to make the parents feel uncomfortable and shamed.
While parents were more punctual than in other schools, it was not 100% of people picking up their children on time all the time.
So in order to make it more strict, the school decided to levy a fine from the parents who weren't on time. You can see why they thought this would work.
But in fact, the whole plan backfired. More parents started coming late. They had made a trade off. Earlier, they were feeling ashamed. Now that they were being fined, the shame was paid off and they didn't feel any guilt because it was okay to be late as long as you are willing to pay some money.
As I am recounting this experiment from memory, I may have been wrong in recollecting some of the finer details of this story (maybe it wasn't in America and maybe it was a day care centre) but the findings are correct.
Now, Mothers day or fathers day are a western/ American phenomenon. In these areas, it is quite common to ship off your parents to a home if they are unable to look after themselves. Any communication between parent and progeny is rare and very formal.
So perhaps, these kids were feeling guilty or nagged with belief that they weren't properly looking after their parents.
Now introduce events like fathers and mothers day. You get a chance to pay off your guilt in the form of a greeting card or gift and boom! You don't have to be worried about them till the next year.
Do you ever wonder why there's no sons day or daughters day? I guess it's because only a small portion of parents feel guilty about the way they treat their kids.
That perhaps explains why these events exist in the West. But why do we Indians have this phenomenon? For most of us, the prime ambition in life is to be able to provide a good life to our parents (in a previous post I said that most Indians feel they are deeply indebted to their parents).
Well that's simple. The western culture is the dominant one in the world right now. So most of the others feel a need to copy this culture (and some feel the need to vehemently oppose it).
All these years, I have been asking myself, "How is it possible for such events exist?". That was the wrong question. The question is, "Why do they exist?".
I will relate an incident that might explain this phenomenon.
A school in America really wanted parents to pick up their kids after school very punctually. At first, they put social pressure as an incentive for the parents to be on time. Teachers would stare at the parents who weren't on time or other such acts were carried out to make the parents feel uncomfortable and shamed.
While parents were more punctual than in other schools, it was not 100% of people picking up their children on time all the time.
So in order to make it more strict, the school decided to levy a fine from the parents who weren't on time. You can see why they thought this would work.
But in fact, the whole plan backfired. More parents started coming late. They had made a trade off. Earlier, they were feeling ashamed. Now that they were being fined, the shame was paid off and they didn't feel any guilt because it was okay to be late as long as you are willing to pay some money.
As I am recounting this experiment from memory, I may have been wrong in recollecting some of the finer details of this story (maybe it wasn't in America and maybe it was a day care centre) but the findings are correct.
Now, Mothers day or fathers day are a western/ American phenomenon. In these areas, it is quite common to ship off your parents to a home if they are unable to look after themselves. Any communication between parent and progeny is rare and very formal.
So perhaps, these kids were feeling guilty or nagged with belief that they weren't properly looking after their parents.
Now introduce events like fathers and mothers day. You get a chance to pay off your guilt in the form of a greeting card or gift and boom! You don't have to be worried about them till the next year.
Do you ever wonder why there's no sons day or daughters day? I guess it's because only a small portion of parents feel guilty about the way they treat their kids.
That perhaps explains why these events exist in the West. But why do we Indians have this phenomenon? For most of us, the prime ambition in life is to be able to provide a good life to our parents (in a previous post I said that most Indians feel they are deeply indebted to their parents).
Well that's simple. The western culture is the dominant one in the world right now. So most of the others feel a need to copy this culture (and some feel the need to vehemently oppose it).
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