Modern Lifestyle drifting away kids from family

Recently, one of my friends after coming from family vacation shared his experiences of being together with his father and his teenage children. While in car, his father wanted to listen to Bollywood music of 70s and children protested that they can’t bear those drowsy songs. While having the breakfast when my friend sipped the tea from cup, children started shouting “Dad, please be courteous, slurping is very indecent behavior”. My friend found it difficult to react to this observation.

It was very annoying for my friend to realize that both of his teenage kids were hardly talking to each other or to their grandfather. The younger one was busy with games on his tablet where as elder one had earphones and most of the time listening to music. My friend also realized that this situation was unlike his childhood when the entire family enjoyed with each other during any outing.

The progress of technology in 20th century has lead to inevitable differences in taste, attitude, opinion, thoughts, style of fashion, values, beliefs and interests. This may comfortably be called a generation gap and dismissed, but it has deeper meaning into “family co-existence” and well being of society as a whole.

With advent of so-called fast food joints like KFC, McDonalds, Pizza Hut and many others, the difference in taste and food habits between parents and present day kids have widened. Many would argue that food-is-a-food , irrespective of traditional home made food or fast food. But, the pertinent fact is that number of calories in fast food is immensely high in comparison to homemade food, resulting into obesity at young age. The problem is compounded by fact that Television, Internet in home computer, Tablets and Mobile phones has forced children to enjoy more with these gadgets and restricted them to play in open field, at least in urban areas.

Children of 21^st century have begun to challenge their traditional customs and adopt some of new cultural values which are highly influenced by social media, television and music. Children enjoy the company of their friends rather than to spend time with their parents or grandparents. Today’s communication and emotional gap between children and parents will eventually yield separation between parents and children when they grow up. And the major reason that parents live an isolated when they grow old.