NEW DELHI: Today’s ET corporate awards show has an unusual host,
Ananya Birla
. Despite being born into one of India’s pre-eminent business families, she has scripted an adulthood beyond its cement-to-telecom boundaries.
And her uber-wealthy parents have supported her passion, music. The straightjacket of hereditary work that characterised most of human history, has loosened a lot in the modern era.
Among the wealthiest families, though, its grip has persisted the most. Because passing on roles and responsibilities set at birth is seen as essential to keeping
family businesses
bullish. But times, they are a-changin’. As Ananya shows. As does her brother, Aryaman, who has played for Madhya Pradesh in Ranji Trophy.
Truthfully, ‘follow your passion’ is
career advice
everyone cannot afford. Like the Raju Rastogi character in 3 Idiots – whose wings are weighted down by ‘behen ki shaadi, maa ki sari and pitaji ki dawai’.
There are parents who ask children to do the same job as them, because that looks like the only way to make rent from one Holi to the next. But the wealthy and the well-off can afford to let their young fly free. There is no survival imperative here. So, forcing children into pre-ordained jobs and marriages, against their wishes, is deeply unjust in these cases. Sometimes, it looks like downright human rights abuse. In extreme cases, it ends up hurting the family instead of helping it.
It’s one thing if a parent and child share the same passion. If a tycoon’s daughter dreams of becoming a tycoon from babyhood. But in pressured scenarios, the parentally prescribed path means a lesser life for their child. Sometimes the failure to meet Great Expectations is hurtful, even traumatic. It festers resentments. It sours
family relations
irreparably.
A free choice alternative is infinitely better. Because the ideas that one’s children have for themselves, are better ideas, for them. The grandson of Rahul Bajaj has devoted himself to the craft of aerial acrobatics. Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s son is a cricketer, Bruce Springsteen’s is a firefighter. Bill Gates’s daughter is an elite equestrian.
Generally speaking,
professional classes
have led in lifting their foot off the ‘join the family trade’ pedal. The point of frenetically financing and ferrying your child from lessons in Hindustani vocals to football, is to see what she is good at and likes being good at.
Maybe you are a lawyer, and your daughter is into graphic designing. Or you are a surgeon, and your son is into wilding in the Western Ghats. Among all the downsides of growing up today, this is a wonderful upside, the abundance of vocations that are now ‘respectable’. Intimacy coordinator to professional cuddler, potter to sommelier. Everyone who can afford to give their children all these choices, should.
Khalil Gibran memorably said, “Your children are not your children…they belong not to you.” Any tree should be made happier by its seeds falling further and further. So, parents, stop insisting on your shadow being your children’s horizon.