3rd December 2009
A Family Album…
To put the world right in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right.
Confucius
I don't know if you realize the fact that we know about our relations far less than what our parents knew and our children are going to know much less! About fifty years ago, life was much more fun and we lived a happy life surrounded by our relatives and friends. But now, we are too busy to renew our contacts and to know our relations. In our time cousins are friends and in the next generation, cousins will be strangers! Today you do a simple exercise. Ask your son or daughter to write down the names of all their cousins and tell you how they are related. You will be surprised that they are not well informed!
Today we do not have time to attend family get togethers and even if we find some time, We are physically present and mentally absent. We are in a hurry to move out after marking our attendance. We don't sit and talk to each other. We don't introduce our children to our relatives. The situation is more compounded in many families where people live in different countries. The world has shrunk and we spend more time traveling.
We need to do something about it. As a first step ask your children to make a `family chart' like we do an organization chart in our place of work. Before that you must sit with them and talk to them about your family members and their relationship with you. Let them use the technology that is available. They can send an e mail and get the photographs of their cousins and nephews. They can use the scanners and websites to do this job perfectly. They can even start email newsletters. There are lots of websites available where you can post family photographs and bulletins.
This is the right time to do this, since shortly all the examinations will be over and the children will be free to start this `family project'. Give project a try and your children will like the same.
N C Sridharan
www.thetimefoundati
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