Girl child is a liability whereas a boy is an asset to the family. I am sure this line doesn’t surprise Indians anymore. After all, desire for a male heir is nothing new in any part of the world, especially in India.
The moment a girl child is born, we start investing in policies and jewellery to finance her wedding more than her education. Who will make us understand that a girl child is not a born liability? Rather we have made her a one with our narrow minded attitude. ‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhao‘ and several relevant campaigns have failed to teach us this simple fact. No matter how modern we become, some old school thoughts never leave us:
Bringing up a girl child is a huge responsibility. As soon as she finishes her studies, it’s better to marry her off.
This girl can’t prepare even a cup of tea. What is she going to do in her in-laws home ?
Her parents should have tried one more time for a boy. God knows, who will look after them once they are old ?
Is she the only child ? She will bear children for another family. What will happen to her father’s name then ?
The above is just a small sample of our thought process. We pretend outside that the child’s gender- a girl or a boy doesn’t matter to us. But most of us hold a secret desire for a boy mainly because of the concerns stated above. We feel relieved inside if the newest member in the family is a boy.
I think we need to change some technical settings in our ‘social system’ before we start taking ‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhao‘ program seriously. We need to adopt some new school thoughts for ourselves and the coming generation :
Bringing up a child itself is a huge responsibility – be it a girl or a boy. Develop good values in your child apart from studies. Marriage cannot be the only objective in someone’s life.
A boy should also know how to cook. Everyone needs food for their survival.
Make your boy learn to respect his in-laws too along with his parents. His wife will be forever grateful to him when he will help her in taking care of them.
Educate your girl child so that people know her father by her name. Can anyone tell the father’s name of Mother Teresa, Kiran Bedi, Kalpana Chawla, Marie Curie, Helen Keller, Margaret Thatcher, Oprah Winfrey, J.K.Rowling, Saina Nehwal, Aishwarya Rai without doing a google search ? I have only named a few from the long list.
Try having this approach once with your own child and see the difference. You will forget thinking about assets or liabilities. And I will forget writing about this annoying habit in #theannoyingindian.
Very true.
Our society’s mentality needs to change
Yes. We need to change ourselves at first .
thoughtful articles
Thank u 🙂
Unfortunately this bias still exists, even though we are in twenty first century
I know. But, what to do? The least we can do is to give good values to our own children. They shouldn’t believe in such stupid things when they are grown up.
Powerful thoughts. This needs to change and we have to bring about the change ourselves.
Hope we see that good day soon in future.
Definitely
Very logical writing, agreed with each point.
Thanks Jyotirmoy ☺