The Village & The Bubble - Part I

Life, Liberty...

© 𝕾𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖍 𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖗𝖆

(inspired by a recent chat with a friend 🙏🏻)

Like most of our generation, I was truly raised by The Village. Not in the poetic sense people use it now, nor an actual place, but in the raw, unfiltered version where everyone had a say in how you turned out. Parents, uncles, aunties, teachers (a few brilliant, many mediocre, some truly awful), neighbors who knew your full name and your family history of many generations,  they all claimed partial ownership and actively participated in the shaping of your destiny.

There was no concept of privacy, no liberty, no “safe space,” no bubble wrap. You belonged to everyone, not just your family. You got fed along with others by your mom or a neighbor auntie, all  keeping an eye out that all the kids running around in your para, mohalla or society. The Village was watchful and noisy, shouting unsolicited advice and admonitions, mostly ignored by us but not resented. Parenting was a collective effort from the sidelines more than hands-on, delivering life lessons disguised as scolding, warnings of doom if you didn’t study, behave, or respect your elders. They said it out of love, mostly. Out of fear, too, fear that we’d turn out worse, lazier, softer than them.

We didn’t know words like "childhood trauma," "dysfunctional family," or "emotional boundaries." All families were the same. If someone had used those phrases, we’d have stared blankly and gone back to our endless games of cricket, marbles, or tag. Life was what it was, soft and tough, perfectly imperfect, unfairly fair, and you learned to swim in it. The Village made sure you didn't get swept away, with hushed tales of those few wayward and errant youngsters with long sideburns, smoking on the street corners, aka The Road Inspectors. There simply was no other choice. There was no App for food delivery. If you didn't like what was on the table, you went hungry. 

I suppose being a boy in The Village had its perks: more freedom, fewer restrictions. But it came with invisible and heavy weights, expectations you felt instinctively but couldn’t name, the constant hum of “be strong,” “don’t cry,” “make us proud.” Excelling in academics perhaps seemed the expected way to show it. Our sisters in The Village were expected to be "lady-like," learn "traditional values" and absorb skills needed to "run a household" as well. 

Now, years later, I look at our children. We as parents were soft-spoken. No yelling, the Childhood Experts expertly warned us. Surround them with gentle words and gentle hands. Built them cocoons made of love, empathy and understanding. We listened, we embraced, we reasoned, we cajoled, we protected. We called it nurturing, and maybe it is. But sometimes, I wonder if we’ve gone too far, if our constant cushioning has made the children allergic to the rough edges of the real world out there.

They seem to be hypersensitive, bruise too easily now. A bad grade feels like a mortal wound. A disagreement among friends, a full-blown crisis with tears, unsocial media drama. Too often, parents jump in. We rush to smooth it all out, fixing their problems, patting their backs, drying their tears, terrified that a scratch on the heart will leave a permanent scar. We call it love. And it is love, but also fear. The same fear our parents had, just dressed differently.

The world hasn’t softened with time. It’s louder, faster, crueler in subtle, quieter ways, in glaring, blaring ways. With harsh, jagged edges, not the rounded, soft Bubble. And our children, fragile, tender,  articulate, sensitive, are rushing into it, wanting to grow up with open hearts but thin armor. With lots of information literally at their fingertips, mostly garbage but no life experience to sort the wheat from the chaff, the pure metal from the slag, the wisp of truth hidden by smoke and mirrors. Listening to their equals, their peers around the world mostly, their teachers only occasionally and to the parents rarely. Maybe they’ll all learn to build their strength later, through gentleness rather than struggle. Maybe they’ll redefine resilience entirely. I certainly and fervently hope so.

Still, I sometimes miss The Village of our generation, flawed as it was. The noise, the blunt honesty, the unspoken resilience we absorbed just by surviving it. We grew up in the wild and we called it normal. They grow up in carefully curated gardens crafted by us.

Maybe both are right for their eras. Maybe both are wrong. Maybe our generation simply overcorrected for the perceived shortcomings of our parents' generation, trying to love better, hurting differently, always hoping, despite it all that our children will turn out okay.

Given a choice, I would consider The Village over The Bubble for myself again.