Parental Pressure and its effects in the society

I remember about 5 years ago, my close friend Susan was under a lot of pressure by her parents to get married. She was a very shy girl, and rarely left the house, or socialized at work, so this was hard for her. But the pressure was too much, so she made a goal to get married before cloaking 30; she was 28 years old at the time. That same year, Susan met a guy at her work place, and within 3 months, they were planning marriage. I wanted to tell her to chill a little, but it would seem like I was trying to hold her back for my own selfish reasons. So, the wedding held, and before the end of the first year, the couple already started having problems. 

You see, even though her parents wanted her to marry at all cost, her mother didn’t like the guy she brought to them, but her father had the final say, and blessed the union. With time, Susan’s mother started finding fault in a lot of things her daughter’s husband did. Susan being a mommy’s girl would also bring up ideas the mother suggested for the forward movement of the house, and this would infuriate the husband, and fights would break out. The mother’s love for her daughter clouded her judgment, and she thought she was doing the right thing by being by her daughter’s side all the time and not letting her be self dependent. And within three years, the marriage crashed. 


 

The story I have told above is a true life story, and I am sure a lot of people reading this can relate to this, because it happens a lot in our society. A huffingpost article described parental pressure as the fine line between caring and caring too much. It is good for parents to care and want the best for their children, but when the children reach a certain age, they have to be left alone to make their own decisions, live with the consequences, and learn. Yes, they would be a lot of mistakes made, but with time, the child would be a better person than if the parents were always the ones pushing him or her in all directions he/she decided to go. I rare local chickens, and I have noticed that after 2 months, the same Mother Hen that would fight an eagle to protect her chicks, would start to chase them away, as she feels it is time for them to be on their own. I wish some humans could learn from this.

In our society today, there are a lot of broken homes; spineless men who never want to live home and in the process become a menace to the society; depressed people who were forced into whatever line of career they are in by their parents, which leads to a life of unhappiness and even suicide. These are some of the negative effects of parental pressure, and things would continue to get bad if new and future parents don’t learn from articles like this. It is only natural for parents to want the best for their children, but some go too hard with the caring, and make the children into robot prototypes of what they wish they would have been. It is like some parents want to live their lives again through their children. And since most times this goes against who the child really is, it does more harm than good.