Adultescence and you

If you are a teenager/twenty something spending your vacations at home,you might find the following things familiar – your sleeping pattern doesn’t exactly match that of your parents,you have at least one addiction(I’m talking about cellphones/laptops/gaming consoles here), someone else does all the cooking for you, you’re constantly nagged by your mom for being unorganized, dirty, etc and by your dad for not working hard enough. If even one of the above is true, then congrats, you’ve successfully claimed your place in ‘The adultescence club’. If cleaning up your room means making a pathway from the door to your bed, you’re quite a pro, they say. However, be not proud, you’re also being touted as the biggest parenting failure of all times, with your generation being the most irresponsible and incapable of carrying out daily life.

According to an article in The New Yorker – Spoiled Rotten , you and me belong to a generation that is spoilt beyond repair. Of course,the article focusses mainly on Americans, but it also holds true for a significant part of Indian youngsters. After all,haven’t your parents at one time or the other been skeptical of letting you do something that you were capable of? Say,your parents tied your shoe laces till you were 9 or 10 years old. You still can’t cook as your mum thinks you’ll burn up the house. And there are a few people whose mothers pack their luggage when they come to college and some go to the extent of coming all the way to the hostel to set up their kids’ room! ’Helicopter parenting’ comes with a quite a few perks,doesn’t it?

Moreover, who in his/her normal sense would bother doing their laundry, cooking their meals and offering to run a few errands for their parents when the parents (add a hired help in case of India) are ever ready to do so. Also, a lot of parents actually find it easier to do things themselves not getting it done by us (Pssst…all those times we act as if we can’t hear what mum/dad are saying –we’re basically ignoring them). Also, in the current economic situation, parents’ main focus is that we get a good education and a sound job. Acting like an adult, can wait. Hence the luxury of being spared half the responsibilities. That we use the so thoughtfully crafted out time playing games, watching endless re-runs of shows, Facebook-ing, to name a few, is a totally different story!