Family relations at Extinction

Extinction of Family relations?!

We have come across extinction of species like the dinosaurs, mammoths and many others. But have we ever heard of the extinction of a family relation. No, we have not, but we will soon come across this or we are experiencing it already without knowing. So what is this extinction all about?

India is one of the nations where family relations and values are rooted strongly and deeply. There are lots and lots of relations in India. Every person in the family is referred by a relationship name. In the western countries there is a collective name for a relation. For example, “Uncle” is a person who is father's brother or mother's brother or father's/mother's sister's husband. But each of this relation is referred with a unique name in India. All languages in India have its own unique name for the relations.

Now let’s come to the extinction problem. The meaning of extinction here is that some of the relations do not exist in some families or it is near extinction. For example, I have 4 uncles (my father’s brothers). But my son will not have a direct uncle (my brother) as I am the only son in my family. The same happens to other relations too in families where there is only son or only daughter or only child. At one point in future nobody will have a direct relation. We all will have a distant relation like a distant brother, a distant uncle, aunty etc. As we all know the distant relation doesn’t work, we lose the relation and forget there was a relation like that and be isolated.

The reason for this is the socio-economic change. The present generation and future generations too will have a tendency to think economically and socially and plan conservatively when it comes to raising children, sorry “a CHILD”. This decision of the new generation parents is good but at the same time the relations and relationships should also be preserved.

How can it be preserved? It is not an object to keep it in museums, it is a feeling. To preserve it the simple and best way is to treat our neighbors as relations. This is already in practice. As far as I remember I have called my neighbors as uncle and aunty. Sometimes I call them with a specific relationship name and sometimes with a collective name. There is an advantage of practicing this. The future generation will have a united feeling and treat everybody with some relation. Brotherhood should be the mantra. When this starts in the locality where we live, slowly this will evolve around the world. Thanks to over population which taught us family planning and promoting brotherhood with our neighbors.