GAP Study!!

Since now I am part of Software Industry, the title is obvious :-)

Well the thought is very Indian and very Indian upbringing stuff!!

Most of us did our schooling at our hometowns ......... under the shelter of our parents and then moved out (from the base location) to different cities, for higher studies or search or timepass :-)

So like most of us, I also moved from Haridwar to Delhi to pursue my higher studies.
And again, like most of us, I was in Hostel!! Few of us also stay outside hostel (for fear of ragging) in private flats/apartments!!
Well, the point is that we are outside, without the protective cover / Discipline bag of our parents .

So, during the hostel life, we gained a lot of independence, decision making (as in screwing situations :-)), self appraisal, self life style, not to mention the degree (which only we know, how we earned ;-))

Next level .......... all of us either moved to next level of education / moved into the good n bad corporate world.

Cutting the whole story, all of us sometime somewhere landed into Corporate World!!

Now comes the time when we visit our homes to meet our parents/nears n dears once in a while during our busy job schedules!!

Intensity might differ but all of us know it in our hearts that we face some issues in staying there for more amount of time. Issues coz we, as per us, are mature people with own life and own way of living. So we dont like questions, timelines, rules, religion stuff, tradition!! We are cosmopolitan!!

I have been, for some time analysing why this happens and for my analysis I compare my current status with another friend of mine.

Firstly my status: I moved from Delhi to HYD (worked for 3 years) to BLR (worked for 2 years) and now in Noida. Parents stay with me now.
My Friend's status: Delhi to BLR (still working there). He sometimes comes and stays with parents in Delhi.

I feel some discomfort but my friend has terrible time!!

Are parents too demanding?? Are they too interrogating types?? Not really.

The reason that I found, which I call as the "GAP Study", is the GAP between what we are and what our parents know who we are!!
e.g. we during school were good boys/gals .......... parents always proud of us being the perfect child any parent could have in their lives!! we during period of independence become so independent that we indulge into habits which we know our parents may/may not appreciate. e.g. vegetarians start eating chicken, we start drinking, smoking, indulging into other stuff which we were told during school time, NOT TO DO!! So we being the Sindbad's of our lives explore all the NOT IN THE LIST islands!!

I am not saying what is right or wrong, I am just putting my thoughts on why do we have that discomfort with our parents.

Coz today we are different from what our parents know about us. While staying with them now we feel the discomfort of getting away from our Free Bird life. Not tthat they bind us, but think from their perspective, how many of us do share our professional or personal problems with our parents to some extent? lesser the extent, more is the discomfort since parents are not left with any other way but to ask on why, what, when, who, where!!

Since few of me and some my friends have shared may be 80% of actual lives with our parents, my comfort level staying with them is atleast 80%.

What is parents fault if they dont know about their children? Nothing. We never told them.
We have changed so much that we know that the GAP is huge and it would take tones and tones of time and effort in explaning them what we are today and why (most of us dont even remember the reasons for our changes).

I probably have been taking risks and exploring a bit on this in my case!!
e.g. I get late from a friend's party after office and reach home pretty late!! Contrary to my expectations, my mom did not call me even once asking on when would I come and where am I just because I told her in the morning that I would be at friend's party and would come late. My mom is aware that in BLR, during party at friend's place or a travel, i have driven for whole night, stayed at friend's place or came late so she knew that if there is any issue, I would call. But at the sametime, even if she had called while I was late, it would have been cause of her concern on my safety and not to interrogate!!

So as our life styles have changed as the need of today is different. Our way of living has changed since we need to be like that to have a work-life balance ........... but in this whole balancing act, we probably have forgotten about our parents and families ........... not "Forgetting" in literal terms but in terms of bring them abreast on our changes, developments, successes, failures etc etc.

So this gap ensures that we remain in discomfort and till the time we dont minimise it, it will always continue and grow bigger!!
We when normally talking on a serious note to our friends say that, "parents wont understand". But have we ever tried to make them understand!!
We can scream at our boss's in the job of giving us some high funda without explaning how it happens, then why do we expect our parents to understand our statement after our evolution of 5-6 years?

I now believe in this:
Less the gap, more the comfort
More the information, less the gap
What is right, what is wrong is your own thought. Its with you!!
What you want to tell, what you dont, its again your wish!!
Parents could understand us when we were kids. They can definitely understand us today too. Just that we need to be as expressive as we were when we were kids!!
None of the statements are 100% true. This is my thought, you may have a different opinion, a different feeling. What I wrote is my funda!! May or maynot be applicable generally.