In 2018, I was 24 years old, an adult in every way imaginable anywhere else in the world, visiting Hyderabad where my brother was living at the time. I took a week-long break, with the intent to work on my novel’s outline while he would be away at work from Monday to Friday.
The first day, after my brother left for work and the house help had completed the chores for the day, I sat around, making myself comfortable in an unfamiliar place. At around 2 pm, I thought I would explore the neighbourhood, so I texted my brother, “Can I step out?”.
I waited for his answer for two hours.
And it was only at 4:30 that I questioned that message itself; why did I have to ask him?
It was a defining moment in my life because I realised just how much Indian parenting is a controlling kind of love and safety net to showed up in adulthood, and how it makes us poorer adults.
And it affects women the most.
From a young age, women are policed much more than men, their actions controlled. We little girls have to seek permission for everything – are repeatedly treated like we know lesser, and our decisions doubted even before we have a chance to prove their worth.
What can I eat?
What can I wear?
Can I go play with friends in the evening?
Can I sleepover at a friend’s house?
How should I sit?
How should I speak?
Indian schools offer no escape:
“May I have water?”
“May I use the restroom?”
You have to ask. Always ask.
Developmental psychology talks about “autonomy-supportive” parenting, where kids choose and learn from errors, against over-controlling kinds, linked to anxiety, doubt, leadership gaps. Philosopher Isaiah Berlin described this liberty gap: families grant paths but choke free action.
And I would not need this experienced back up by research, but Indian teen studies note how adolescence is the best time for kids to develop self-reliance, yet parental control and norms block it.
This control extends most strongly to girls. Boys are allowed to make mistakes. Learn from it. A girl is either spoon-fed “what she needs to know” or kept in the dark.
And what can we get but half-formed adulthoods from such an environment?
We define adulthood as having a job, being able to buy your own car or having bought a car, marrying someone.
But how many of those decisions can we make without wondering, “Will my parents allow it?”
For women, does earning validate your adulthood? Or are your moves, plans, experiences still governed by the elders around you? Can you just take off on a trip? Or do you need to justify that plan?
We speak of women empowerment a lot. Beti Padhao Beti Bachao campaigns, free education, women’s transport-strong starts. But we have barely uttered anything about women’s autonomy. Neither at home, nor in society.
Women’s freedoms arrive leashed tight by parental love’s flip side.
I feel the tether even at 32, because every independent decision is hard fought. And among all the decisions call for a tug at the leash, marriage yanks hardest. And I don’t need to tell either men or women just how much control Indian parents assert in this most person of decisions.
This dependency we develop can affect our work, almost certainly affects our marriages, and will surely affect our own children.
We cannot undo the damage of this style of parents.
It’s systemic, so we cannot blame our parents.
But we CAN chose to decentre our parents. MUST do that.
Find your internal moral compass, not blindly accept the definitions of right and wrong you received from parents.
Accept your mistakes as a learning curve, and not something that makes you feel less.
Make bets. Small ones first. Let the wins give you the confidence to make bigger ones. This could be purchasing stocks, filing your taxes, changing the tyre of your car. Everything that you once thought you needed to ask someone else for – try to first do this yourself.
Confidence is not a trait, it’s a collection of learnings from every failure you experience.
And standing on your own two feet means removing the voice of self-doubt in your head.