Overheard this conversation at the airport between a young lady and an older lady:
Older Lady: “So beta, when do you plan to settle down?”
Young Lady: Hesitatingly. “Umm, don’t know yet auntie, let’s see. As of now I am still settling in my job.”
Older Lady:” Nahi beta, this job and all is ok, but you need to settle down, you are getting older. You should get married soon, settle down and have children.”
Young Lady: Trying to be firm. “No auntie my career is important too, I am not sure if I want to take on the responsibility of a marriage and children just yet.”
Older Lady: Grumbling. “Oh come on, you children these days, all misplaced values…”
This is a typical conversation that you will hear whenever an auntie type of a lady meets a younger woman/man. Men get away with the career excuse, women cant. Men are expected to work and support the family; women are still expected to tend to the family! Which is all very well, I don’t intend to try and change the traditional social balances or opine on them, but what if there are some exceptions? In today’s world everyone needs to be independent and most women want to have a career, not just a job. So is there something wrong with that?
I know that there are women who are thrilled at the thought of marriage, who are terribly excited that they are pregnant and that’s a reaction expected out of all women. But what if some woman can’t be thrilled or excited about marriage? What if the thought of having a child is not joyous for a particular woman? What if she does not want to have a child? Just because she is married, does she have to want to have a child?
But she is expected to follow a certain pattern, the milestones for her life are pretty much defined:
1. Complete education,
2. Get a job, (if at all she wants to prove something to the world, if not this is not a must)
3. Get married,
4. Have children and
5. Take care of family (her job may continue if she can manage it along with her family).
But if some woman does not want to live this life cycle and wants something different, is she wrong? Does she have to procreate to keep mankind alive? Is it right if she is not allowed to make these choices for herself and has to live her life as per the defined life-cycle?
Whenever someone tries to do something that does not fit with the norms of the society it always attracts a lot of brickbats. Men and women, both are equal recipients of these brickbats. If everyone sticks to the a standard type of behavior with standard type of actions and reactions, will we not be more like software programs running on the operating system of this earth? The society is extremely averse to any individual who does not want the same things like everyone else wants in life.
Which makes me wonder, are we living our lives based on our choices or are we programmed to live as per our defined life cycle milestones? Is the society turning human beings more and more in to programmed beings? Are we more human or are we becoming more of human-robots? Can we ever break free from these norms and rules and do what appeals to us without having to face the burden and the hurt of all the brickbats? Will not living by these norms make us people with misplaced values? When will we learn to let people live by their choices, be free, be happy with achieving what they want to achieve in their lives? Will we ever?
