Joint Family System – January 1st, 2006
V.Vengadasalam
Children are not responsible enough. These are the words that are often uttered by parents. My opinion is that to help the children metamorphose into responsible adults would be to let them grow in a blissful, obliging society. In such circumstances, children will learn to develop good characteristics.
As long as I know, the only way to obtain this kind of environment is to live in a joint family. This is not only good for them but also good for everyone involved. First of all, they learn how to share and live in with people of different ages, as it is viable in the joint family. Here opportunities to learn are not created and are readily available. They will learn how to share toys and play with whatever they have. This is one of the most vital characteristics that help a child to develop himself or herself into a good human being in the future.
There are a number of qualities the child gets imbibed to when living in a joint family. In addition to the earlier point that I made, in a joint family, the child will learn to help each other. The child will learn how to help a person when in trouble. Not only that, the child will learn how to respect others and tolerate others. Definitely, these qualities will help a child emerge as a respectable man as how lava metamorphoses into beautiful butterfly. These are other important characteristics for a child to be respected in the society in the future.
Along with that, the child will mix around with a lot more people than if it is in a single family. Quite a number of people will come to visit other people. During such visits, the child learns about other people, their behaviour and at times even about their culture. Thus, the child is exposed to many characters.
The child learns how to adjust with people and live. Let me give you an example. For instance, if there is only one piece of a cake left, as an older person, you give way to the younger child and thus the child learns what adjustment is.
Hereby I don’t mean to say that the child not being brought up in a joint family are not learning anything, but my only argument is that the children in the joint family are more tolerant and patient in every aspect.
Most prominently, the child can share his or her burden with the age group of his or hers or with the elders in the family or a person liked by the child. It can turn out to be some sort of counselling. This will certainly help the child by all means. I am quite sure this is not the case for children not living in joint families, as the number of choices is limited.
Therefore, to conclude, I repeatedly say that the joint family is better than a single family in most of the circumstances, since it provides a good environment for the child to grow.