India has a complex intergenerational culture, especially when it comes to relationship between parents and children.

Parents are obsessed to see their children get settled in life. For them getting settled in life typically means getting the children married and seeing their grandchildren before they die.

There is no doubt that parents love their children, probably at times tend to overlove them, but then at what cost and at who’s expense.

The larger point of debate is, do parents become over demanding and/or use emotional blackmail as a tool, especially when they are in their last stages of life.

Recently, I met someone who was emotionally blackmailed to get married because his mother was on the deathbed. While his mother passed away peacefully but now his peace of mind is troubled because of the unscheduled marriage.

Though times are changing and the concept of getting settled has changed, yet the pressure of parents dying wishes will always remain.

The societal urban fabric might have changed over the past two decades however the rural areas are still battling with the concept of responsibility of children especially the daughters.

On the rural front, parents become grandparents by the age of 45-48 years, whereas in the urban areas children do not even get married till their parents become 55-60 years.

This visible divide of intergenerational culture and responsibilities between the rural and urban areas has its own limitations w.r.t Ageing Process.

Urban class is facing a lack of family caregivers whereas, parents in the rural areas have atleast one child in the village/ town to take care of family affairs including caregiving.

While it is easy to judge how parents react to the responsibility of children, but then if children are seen as a responsibility then no one can remove the sword of guilt till the so called responsibility is over or if the parents die (whichever comes first).

In my opinion, we all have our own destiny, what will eventually matter is, how responsible we were for our children and how responsible they are towards us in our old age.

Pankaj Mehrotra