Sometimes I feel the Indian family system is a double edged sword..bcs when you fail you fail not only in front of your parents but also in front of the scores of relatives making your fall more difficult to deal with.
Interesting point there. I would like to point out something though. This may be going slightly off-topic but please bear with me as I would like to point out here that the Indian family system isn't totally a bad idea. See the culture I'm from, the Indian Singaporean one has been undergoing major transitions over the past 3 decades. The environment my parents (in their 60's now) grew up in, was largely one comprised of extended families living within their racial groups in a more insular environment. That actually produced some results as well, as everyone was accountable to everyone else. Kids were forced to conform, adopt certain values, perform in a certain way at school. That actually yielded alot of results. I believe most of you over there still have that discipline fostered by your immediate environments.
Coming to my generation, people in their 30's, we grew up in an urban setting, small apartments, complete racial mixing as part ofthe government policy to prevent ghettos from forming. The huge extended families were broken up, and most of us grew up seeing just our parents on a daily basis, grandparents once a month or so, uncles and aunties like once a year during functions or weddings. One major cultural shift in just one generation. It became real easy for us to break out of that family pressure. Parents used to say
Hey what will uncle so and so think of you if he knows u started smoking Our reply would be
Who gives a damn to a dude I see once a year? Sounds like a good thing right? No pressure, no suicides?
Wrong. That's when we started buying into a whole load of social problems. The need and pressure to excel was gone, we didn't see the need to prove ourselves to anyone, life became our own, completely. And there it began a whole bunch of youth problems, truancy, drug abuse, youth gangsterism, basically everything else but education took precedence.
No I don't think you guys should lose that family system you have going right now. That will do more harm than good. Rather, family members have to be educated to be more receptive to their children's problem and act more as a moral support than a harsh disciplinarian seeking just results. What you have going right now has to be tweaked, that's all. More awareness on the issues of stress, depression. Parents have to be well-educated on the problems and pressures teens face this day and age, including friends, girlfriends etc.
To totally do away with the family system would just work in reverse. Then you'd have a bunch of slackers running amok with no discipline. Wouldn't do the individual and the society any good in the long run.
I think the relatives are the worst part. They make scathing remarks, so softly that you can't even talk back
They are certainly part of that problem. But to remove that angle completely from the equation would create new ones. There has to be a balance. Suicide rates would certainly drop once parents start becoming more supportive and take an active interest in their child's development as a whole. Remember guys, it must never be ALL about education. Total development would also mean, showing interest in the child's other interests, sports, personal relationships etc.