Roles and Boundaries of extended families

Viswamitra · Aug 7, 2015

I have never been raised in a joint family and hence I never understood joint-family system and its working. It was so exciting to read Smt. Jayasala's post after it was nominated by Vijiakka. I have heard of joint-family only from my father. My grandfather was the principal of an Engineering College and my father and his brother were treated like any other children at home. My grandfather had so many relatives' children brought to Chennai from his village to do Engineering. At anyone time, nearly 30-40 children were always studying and staying in the quarters allotted to the principal closer to the college. After he finished his Engineering in Electronics and Telecommunication, he joined All India Radio and latter Overseas Communication. He lived in Ahmedabad, Pune and later moved to Chennai. In 1960, he moved over to Neyveli Lignite Corporation. My paternal grandfather died even before I was born. However, our only joint family experience is during summer when we visited the village of our maternal grandparents. They had 4 sons and 4 daughter including my mother and all the grandchildren will get to meet once a year in the village. But that is only for a period of 1-2 months at best.

We have to travel the last two miles in a bullock cart to reach the village but we had power during that time. We were always worried about scorpions falling from the roof when we sleep. My grandfather used to call the only hairstylist in the village to come and do a Hitler-styled haircut for all his grandsons. Granddaughters used to make fun of all of us. Even if we have to go to the bathroom in the night, we have to wake up an adult as we used to be very scared to walk that distance far away from where we normally sleep. The villagers used to make fun of us by asking, "Did you see the paddy tree?" Only thing we thoroughly enjoyed is walking around the village freely without any fear of vehicles, having a wonderful time in the pond located in the village and going after the mangoes hanging from the tree.

But I have never experienced being raised in a joint family.

Viswa

Srama · Aug 7, 2015

Dear JS ma'm,

Thank you again. I understand what you are saying. Like I said earlier there is no one size fits all - I guess even for this system. As long as we realize what works for us, we will be able to move on.

Srama · Aug 7, 2015

Dear V sir,

Thank you for sharing the story of summer vacations with your extended family. Those are the memories that many of us relate to. While I personally did not grow up in a joint family, we always had an extra head in the house from wither of the grand moms to an aunt to a cousin - almost all the time. I learnt early on that fairness was important and my parents treated anyone in our home as their own. To this day that is deep rooted in all of us siblings.

Thank you for sharing your experience.)

pr09borude · Aug 7, 2015

Extended family is good to share sorrows & responsibilities but everyone should be aware of this.But there is lack of independence.

roses · Aug 7, 2015

There are no boundaries in love but when it is turning to take advantage need to draw boundaries

Srama · Aug 8, 2015

Thank you @pr09borude for sharing your views and stopping by here.

Srama · Aug 8, 2015

@roses, you are right absolutely. Indeed it is hard for parents to imagine there is only love and allow their kids to be brought up however. One should always knoo when to draw boundaries. Thanks for sharing your view.

satchitananda · Aug 9, 2015

Very interesting thread Sabitha. Even more interesting is to see an unexpected number of youngsters saying they love the joint system while some seniors also see the flip side of it.

Growing up as I did in a nuclear family consisting of my parents and older sister, my only experience of the joint family was once in a few years when we used to travel to Kerala to visit my dad's home. My grandmother died long before I was born and grand dad when I was five. I believe he has seen me, but I have no memory of him. My Chittappa with his family lived in our ancestral home. My dad had 4 brothers and 4 sisters. It was always wonderful, as a child, to visit Kerala and be with a horde of uncles, aunts and cousins for various functions.

I can only imagine how tough it must have been for my aunt. Of course she had 3 daughters who used to help her around a lot and my aunts and mom used to chip in and work would be shared. I think (that is all I can say from my perspective as a child at that time) they all enjoyed being with each other, but as all of them lived in their own homes, interactions were for a short while of a month at the most.

This kind of close knit family with space is wonderful. It is great to have relatives if one does not have them interfering in the most personal aspects of life. Believe me, even then, one hears and endures a lot of unnecessary discussions, personal comments etc. but then they are usually just forgotten. However, a full fledged joint family, even if it sounds idyllic (especially from the point of view of children) can only function if there is a dominant older person who commands respect of all others and there is a strict hierarchy in the family. This, somehow, does not appeal to my sense of personal freedom and individual rights. Also, since this generally means a strictly patriarchal system, I can't see myself being happy within that structure.

Srama · Aug 10, 2015

Dear Satchi,

Nice to see you here. I understand what you are saying and you are right in quoting that a dominant elder is required in the family and that elder should be that - a leader who is and is not differentiating with in the family. Like I said earlier, I am used to a huge family system - the number of uncles and aunts and cousins well I can loose count but all my grand fathers had their houses across one another in the same street - so my dad grew up close yet far away from cousins and that trickled down to us in a slightly different way. We got to enjoy it and fortunately for me Satchi, it was grand mothers who were stronger. I am used to the women playing a bigger role in keeping the families and sense of togetherness intact and believe it or not my grand mother who is 94 stays put in our old home with my uncles family and all of us get together because of her. She is the glue that is holding our family together and that uncle is special because he is with my grand mom and entertains any number of people that come ....in a single day!!

Like I told to YM, it is always good to know what works for us personally. Perhaps close knit families with space should be the way!

drveena · Aug 12, 2015

I have grown up in a nuclear family set up with both parents working and we kids were okay with that. We did not have any relatives staying nearby so weekends too were "us " only.but that is how a lot of "us middleclass" grew up.we spent our holidays by borrowing books from the library and playing with our friends from the same locality. But sometimes extended family was missed especially when our friends went visiting...