Your parents are planning a baby, and it's not their own
Did you know that your parents are planning a baby? It's a creepy thought if you're anything above the age of 20. God forbid, you don't want your kid to be older than your sibling, right?
It's not the 60s anymore. Back in the day they used to have kids in double digits and it was fairly common. Let's not blame them either.
There were no condoms, there was no Pokémon Go, and there were no fights over the remote. All they had was each other and a weekend to spend where they could not go to a pub and get so drunk that they could not perform in bed.
But it's not their kid I'm talking about. They are planning for the kid that YOU are going to have someday.
It doesn't matter if you're a 13-year-old boy who has just discovered porn or a 17-year-old girl with dental braces on her first date or a newly-married couple who just went to Vaishno Devi for their honeymoon.
You may not know this yet but someday you will have kids. Don't trust me? Ask your parents. They'll tell you.
"Beta, abhi soch rahe ho ki nahi karna, dekhna thode time mein khud hi pata chal jayega. Ek din to sabko karna hi hota hai. Bas tees se pehle kar lena."
We're currently going through the golden age of confusion. Our generation is becoming more aware about things and we've realised that having a kid may not be the ultimate goal of life.
There are a lot of other meaningful experiences that we could have, like getting stuck in a traffic jam in Ladakh, or smoking a joint in Varanasi, or experiencing women's liberation at a go-go bar in Bangkok.
While we realise all of this, we are still our parents' kids. We are still living off their hard-earned money. We're still waking them up in the middle of the night to open the door after a drunken night at a club on a Thursday.
So we may not want to have kids, but we most certainly will have a few because it's the least we can do for our parents!
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| You may not know this yet but someday you will have kids. |
"Aakhir ye farz hai hamara. Wo hamare achhe ke liye hi to keh rahe hain."
Today, it's our parents who are more excited about having a kid than us. We're all in high stress jobs that never seem to pay us enough. We're all in relationships that don't seem like they're going to last a lifetime, like they did for our grandparents.
And we're in a country where we already have over 1.2 billion people. Do you know how many zeros are there in 1.2 billion? Neither do I. We have absolutely no reason to have a kid any longer. But…
"Beta, ek baar bachche kar lo, sab theek ho jayega. Dekh lena."
Our social conditioning is such and our love for our parents so immense that having a kid is as natural to us as breathing. It's something we have to do. It's something that everyone does. You know, a part of life.
I wish there were some other things that were also a natural part of our lives. Public flatulence for one. The world would be a much better place if having a kid was more embarrassing than farting! Maybe not…
While reproducing does seem to be one of the key reasons why we are on this planet, it surely can't be the only reason. It's more of a trophy for our parents if we have a kid than an achievement for us.
The only thing I'd be happy about if I ever have a kid would be that I'm potent. Or I might just be extremely sad about it. While our parents will walk in the colony with their heads held high as if they themselves just gave birth to the first real unicorn in the world, we'd just be worrying about rising expenses, changing nappies, or not being able to smoke crack while feeding the baby.
So think all you may want to, but the decision to have a baby has already been taken for you. All you need to do is take care of the practical bit of figuring out the hospital, planning for the kid's education, hoping that your boy does not grow up to become a Salman Khan or your girl tweeting like Shobhaa De.
"Bas beta, baaki sab hum pe chhod dena. Hum hain na. Ab vaise bhi is umar mein hum aur karenge bhi kya…"
Thanks so much, mom and dad!