Today everyone has a chance to maintain
links with the extended family through the internet. It is a nourishing and often
supportive network. Today, however, the family, as the ‘shock absorber of
society,
to which the bruised and battered
individual returns after doing battle with the world,’ in the words of Alvin
Toffler in his landmark work Future Shock, is going through a transitional
phase. The breakdown of the joint family has led to a loosening of extended
family relationships. The powerful mother-in-law of
the joint family is emerging as the
subdued caretaker of children, helping the educated daughter-in-law augment the
double income of all upwardly mobile young couples. The large, amorphous,
supportive joint family that supported a
wide variety of people and bestowed unconditional love for the crippled, the
old and the helpless, has been reduced to the nuclear family where everyone is
in sharp focus. Much like the modern corporation, there is no place to hide, no
place for passengers, and everyone has to pull their own weight.
It is our mission to restore to it its
traditional role as a place of rest and healing, albeit in a new paradigm.
There should be one person in the family who can cushion the blows of the
outside world.
Someone who is not too busy to listen,
give support, and manage the daily tasks of living. This could even be a paid
caregiver or cook. Networking with parents, in-laws, neighbours, domestic help
and
friends is the key for working mothers.
