Prental Care : A shared responsibility

I struggle to come to terms with some cultures. The culture where while some trailblazer women are fighting for their right to light the funeral pyre of their deceased parents, some other women are still using excuses to avoid helping their frail and financially dependent parents. Culture where daughters are claiming equal rights in property, but without shared responsibility. 

This is the very culture where they say daughters inherently love their parents more than a son; they say a daughter's love, gratitude and appreciation for her maternal home doubles once she marries and goes through changes demanded by new home/relationship. Yet, it somehow seems so unloving when some daughters, in that same culture, intentionally hold off help towards their parents in the name of culture. Today, I want to question those unloving daughters why their love is so meagre when it comes to helping their own parents? Why use “culture” as an excuse and I wonder how this weird juxtaposition came into practice. How can such daughters say they love their parents but at the same time refrain from supporting them financially or shelter-wise? How can her heart tolerate knowing and watching own parents suffer especially when she is financially sound, owns a home, has rental income and also holds a job! Why lame excuse of "tradition"?

So what do our scriptures say ? The reasonings passed on through generations suggest a strong misogynistic and patriarchal practices. Historically, parents “give away” their daughter as though she were a liability and therefore in desperate attempt to get rid of the “burden”, they rush through this process hence forbidding them to indulge in any act like eating food, seeking shelter, receiving money etc that would prolong or reverse their “burden”. Nowhere in the history or scriptures does it say that a daughter cannot provide any support to her parents once she is married.

It’s been few decades that daughters have equally enjoyed similar privileges of further education just like their brothers have. I have  seen and known a lot of women who don't have any second thoughts about helping their parents. To them, like myself, supporting their parents come naturally, as it should. To them love precedes everything else, love and care is synonymous to looking after and helping. My salute to those women who are game changers and who rose against tradition. 

Some women may shrug off responsibilities in the name of tradition while some do try, but are discouraged from within the family, and their parents are made to feel humiliated. I am aware there are various factors that prevent daughters from helping their parents. One of those factors, as one of my dear friends highlighted, is the societal labelling and ridicule parents and son-in-laws face when the latter extend their help towards their in-laws. Parents are made to feel embarrassed to go stay at their married daughter's home. There is this whole idea of "ghar jwain": which is so offensive to men  who want to support and love their in-laws. And particularly, in context of Nepal, there is huge crisis of care economy in middle class and lower middle class families. Sons and their families are mostly abroad but parents still hesitate to live with their daughters because of the societal stereotype.

Nepal has become a country of migrants; children of lower class families are either in India or Gulf countries while children of middle and upper middle and high class are broadening their futures in first world countries. The crisis of physical care is not that acute in upper or middle class as they have financial means, but middle and lower class parents need financial, emotional and physical care. So, in this context, examples of myself, my sisters, my mother and aunties have defied the crisis and tradition and this is how we, as society, can shift and challenge the tradition which denies daughters of the love they feel for parents as they become fragile.

My question today is not for those who are already trailblazers. My question is to those majority who don't seem to share the notion of love and support as one and the same thing. My question is to those who pressurise, unnecessarily put burden on and send their brothers on a guilt trip about not supporting their parents just because they happen to be male born in a tradition that tells them it's solely their responsibility to look after parents. 

Here in western culture and many other cultures, regardless of your gender, everything revolves around bonding a family shares. Whether to look after or not to look after parents is based on whether they had close or resentful relationship while growing up. Kids take responsibilities towards their parents if they are close without holding back any financial, emotional, moral or any kind of support towards their parents regardless of their gender. If they don't share a close bond, no matter what dire situation parents are facing, children don't bother. It's as simple as that. Helping parents should be a shared responsibility of all children, whether they are sons or daughters. Responsibilities become a burden when enforced; looking after parents should be less guided by notion of responsibility and should be more about attachment and love that children feel towards parents. 

However, in the context of Nepal, the idea that love and attachment needs to be nurtured and that closeness leads to caring seems to be missing. Daughters are left off the hook from parental responsibilities because when it comes to fulfilling responsibilities, that same love and bonding magically disappears. It appears as though love and responsibilities are two different entities which are unrelated to each other. I then wonder why are daughters still held in high esteem when it comes to loving parents? Don't actions speak louder than words? Their inaction regarding their parents speaks volumes.

A son is forced to put up with this cultural nuance and to provide without exception. He simply cannot get away from this. This is another excuse most daughters present to their parents highlighting their inability to help bringing forth the excuse of their husband having to contribute their income towards his own parents and therefore leaving them with nothing to help her maternal parents. Maybe that's true for some women from rural sector who are uneducated and unemployed, but I'm raising this issue against educated, employed, self-sufficient women who have equal say in their household and to sway husbands' permission in order to help their suffering parents. What could be the reason for them not helping other than having no sense of responsibility towards own parents? Excuse of culture and tradition is far less convincing for such educated and privileged daughters. 

Are daughters really that heartless? When parents have invested in their education and priviledges, shouldn’t then caring for those very parents be an equal responsibility for daughters too? Why are daughters still opting for a lopsided tradition to suit their needs?