Choices

For me America represents freedom to make a choice. Being born, brought up and lived in India for a reasonable amount of time, when I came to USA, "Live and let live" attitude was the first thing that struck me. As long as you don't cause inconvenience to others, you own your life.

A little bit about what I have seen in India, family network is very closely knit. Sometimes I wonder whether the homework of a fifth grader is for a 10 year old student or his 30 year old parent. Mothers are so anxious that the grandparents have to help keeping parent's blood pressure in control. They proudly say how they completed their child's project work with a lot of difficulty. Parents decide on the child's career choice, partner in marriage, place of living, effectively almost everything.

It may not be a completely a different story in USA but from what I have seen so far the choices are made by the young ones for themselves to a large extent. The child may walk out of the house at the age of 18 to live with their friends or special someone. The child makes to choice whether to complete basic graduation or to work. They start supporting themselves financially at a very early age in life.

Now for me, the matter of debate is not what is the right thing but the consequences. Here are some of my primary observations.
1. With the traditional methods followed as in India, the child has a better chance of having secured future with enough financial stability.
2. The world has always acknowledged the brain power from India. So, it would be reasonable to accept that the traditional educational system from India works.
3. As against the above observations, lack of creativity, self learning, experimenting, risk taking in life have been observed in the secured future.
4. Young generation in USA tend to experiment a little outside of the traditional education system. Playing a musical instrument, deep dive into sports including video games, go camping, fishing etc are considered as their areas of self learning.
5. More exposure to opportunities to start small scale businesses here may show more risk taking and experimenting attitude in life. In India the business area appears to be restricted to certain communities so far.

Consequently, comparative percentage of secured future is more with Indians than in Americans and more of creativity and risk taking life is more with Americans. It is not possible to discard either of the two completely. Future security and growth is equally important in order to live and enjoy life. The question is who should be making that choice for you?

The choice to have a secured future or to experiment in life taking risk may decide the course of your life. The question is about the capability to make that choice. How does one make that choice? Who is capable or intelligent enough to make that choice? Being experienced should parents make the choice or being a question of choice the child who may not be knowledgeable should be making that choice?

It appears to be a very thin line to balance out the choice making procedure.