Parents or Children: Who is to come forward?

A seventy-plus-year-old couple, Mr. and Mrs. Rahman, decide to stay in Chattogram after their retirement. They are initially from Dhaka and have no relatives around them in Chattogram. They have a daughter and a son, both around fifty, who are socially recognized and well-established and remain in Dhaka with the family. They regularly visit their parents and attend social and religious celebrations. Recently, both have developed health issues that have prevented them from traveling frequently. Moreover, the grandchildren, who are teenagers and young adults, have friend circles and, obviously, want to celebrate the usual occasions with their friends in Dhaka.

Mr. Rahman was a stubborn man. He never listened to anyone, kept his children at arm’s length, and remained busy pursuing knowledge in his own world. As a submissive wife, Mrs. Rahman never sided with her children, even when it was logical to do so. She always remained silent. Gradually, the children stopped sharing anything with their parents. Moreover, Mr. and Mrs. Rahman are unwilling to leave Chattogram, as it holds all their memories. Furthermore, Mr. Rahman is afraid to travel after his car accident three years ago while driving to Dhaka. As a result, both the parents and the children are suffering from psychological separation; yet there is no solution in sight from any side.

Again, a sixty-five-year-old lady, Mrs. Rashida, has recently retired from her teaching career. She used to teach at a school in a comparatively disadvantaged area. Her family stayed in the central region of Dhaka city for better educational opportunities for the children. The grandparents looked after the children while the parents worked. She used to live near her workplace and visited her loving family on holidays and vacations. Finally, her son became a renowned physician, and her daughter became a well-known professor at a recognized public university.

When she returned to her residence after retirement, she found that her in-laws were no longer there. A couple of years later, her husband died of a stroke, leaving her alone. Her children had families and lived in separate flats in the same apartment. She began living alone in her flat. Recently, she has intensely wanted her children to stay with her, or else she feels depressed. However, the demanding nature of metropolitan business does not allow the children enough time for their mother amid their everyday stressful assignments. Additionally, since they’re in their middle ages, they're physically exhausted all the time, which drives them to rest when they get home. Understanding the reality, the mother also remains aloof in her own world, which, in the long run, makes her feel lonely and depressed.

From the usual perspective, parents are always right, and whatever they do is meant to benefit their children’s lives. After a certain period of time, when children reach their desired position in society, and parents grow old, what actually happens in real life prevents them from stopping the growing distance between them? Does this happen to every metropolitan family? Who suffers most, the lonely, educated, and well-off family members or the uneducated and less-advantaged people?

Every family wants to improve its financial situation, and parents mostly handle all financial matters to help the family rise socially and economically. In the twenty-first century, urban life has gradually widened the distance between parents and children, making it a Frankenstein that does not allow either of them to cross Lakshman’s line and minimize emotional distance anymore.

In today’s world, parents may not realize that their excessive focus on careers and financial gain has created a massive gulf in their relationships with their children. As a result, the children also fail to develop an emotional attachment to their parents. Over time, parents lose the energy to live alone; they need both psychological and physical support from the next generation. Mentally and morally alienated children cannot detect the delicate thread of life that binds them. On the other hand, at the final stage of life, once energetic parents don’t want to show their weaknesses to their children.

Generations in the big city, with all the amenities of a satisfying metropolitan life, often ignore the psychological closeness of relationships, resulting in distance and depression among those involved. Therefore, people tend to nurture their egocentric minds more than their emotional balance. The egotistical, stubborn parents and the reluctant children, thus, get stuck in a vicious cycle of loneliness. As the grandchildren don’t learn from observing their parents how to care for them in old age, the psychological alienation continues and might create a pandemic of loneliness and depression.

Mr. and Mrs. Rahman, or Mrs. Rashida, no one deserves the pain of being alone in old age; they don’t deserve to feel depressed because they have provided everything their children needed and have established them successfully in society. Their children are also not to be blamed, as the stresses of modern life do not allow them to live the life they should with all their family members. Yet, amidst all that chaos, balance should be restored.

Let us emphasize the development of emotional attachment in the parent-child relationship from the very beginning of life. Career, economic security, and social recognition are essential aspects of life. Hence, a cheerful life shared equally by all family members is needed. No parents should feel low in their old age, and no child should feel alienated or unheard in early childhood. To strengthen the bond, both parent and child should come forward; otherwise, loneliness and depression would be the ultimate reality for all.


Shahnaz Parvin Shithy is an Associate Professor, Department of English
Language and Literature, Premier
University, Chattogram.