Father -Son relationship: Things that nobody talks about || Acharya Prashant, with IIT-Kanpur (2023)

Acharya Prashant

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Transcript

00:00Good evening everyone. I am Puneet Dixit. I am currently pursuing B.Tech in Mechanical

00:09Engineering from IIT Delhi. Sir, I had a question about a topic which is very less spoken about

00:16that is father-son bonding. So right now I am 19 years old but I have noticed that over

00:24last 4-5 years that as soon as I hit puberty my relations with my father has got worse

00:32like day by day they are not getting improved they are getting worse more and more. Making

00:40us both agree on a same decision is next to impossible and this is not the case with only

00:47with me many of my friends have also faced the same problem. So what should I do? And

00:58sir also to add that I have also noticed that between my father and my grandfather the relations

01:05are not also like very good. See, there is that old saying that when the same shoe starts

01:20fitting the father and the son they should get out of their respective identities. After

01:35a certain age it's man versus man. Man and man. It's not father and son anymore. If you

01:43still try to keep that pretense it doesn't quite fit. The son will have to talk to a

01:58peer, a senior at most and the father will have to talk to a peer, a junior at most.

02:07And then there can be friendliness. Then there can be a conversation, a deep communication,

02:20a togetherness. Otherwise it will be just a misfitting situation where, please understand,

02:43after you are 14 or 15, by the time you are that age your consciousness has already taken

02:59a certain shape and fundamentally it does not change much. Obviously as you gain experience,

03:14as you move through life superficially a lot of things change in your consciousness but

03:24fundamentally the one you are at the age of 15 or 17, he persists. If you meet, you are in IIT

03:42right now, after four years if you meet one of your classmates from class 10th or 12th,

03:50you'll still be able to easily relate with that person. Even if your classmate has gone

04:01into an entirely different field of study, different city and has not kept in touch with

04:08you, still when the two of you meet it will be the same good old days. Right? Why? Because not

04:18much changes. You'll just have varied experiences to share with each other. Your experiences will

04:27be different from his experiences. But deep within not much change happens. A little change can

04:35happen but not much. After you pass out, if you meet your batchmate after 20 years, you'll still

04:46be able to relate with him just as you did in campus. The reason again is simple, not much

04:54changes. Not much changes. On your telegram or whatsapp groups or whatever technology you use,

05:03if you relate with your batchmates 20 years after passing out, it would still be in the old ways and

05:12that won't look odd because not much changes. Though you'd have lost a lot of hair, gained a

05:20lot of weight, also a lot of money and you would be probably in a different country compared to

05:29your batchmates. Somebody is in Canada, the other one is in Germany, somebody is in Australia and

05:35stuff happens and all that is happening and yet the vibing would not be any different and you

05:44would address each other by the same kind of nicknames and stuff as they were in the college.

05:53The point is 15-17 and 35-37 are not very different. 15-17 and 45-47 are not very

06:07different when it comes to the fundamental things in life and if 15-17 and 45-47 are

06:16very different, then son and father can relate to each other as friends because irrespective

06:26of the age gap, something between them is very shared, very common of the same age.

06:39The son is 17, some part of the father too is 17 and that's what will connect the two and that

06:52within the father which is 17 will continue to remain 17 even till the day the father dies.

07:0117 will remain 17 till 87. I am not denying that people evolve and grow and get wiser and mature,

07:15not denying all that. I am saying all that keeps happening but the fundamentals have

07:27already been frozen. Take an example, a JEE problem, you wouldn't have been able to crack

07:39at the age of 12. Now the JEE problem is something that a professor can solve and

07:48the professor is 45. The same JEE problem, a 17-year-old aspirant also cracks, right?

07:57So something in their intellectual levels at least is now common, is it not? The same thing

08:07cannot be said about a 12-year-old. If you serve a JEE problem to a 12-year-old, he will flounder.

08:12But at the same time it is quite possible that a 17-year-old is able to solve a problem in physics

08:27or mathematics, let's say in JEE, that a 45-year-old professor finds difficult to tackle.

08:33That is possible, is it not? So something they have gained in common. They can think,

08:40they can conceptualize and this commonality becomes the bridge between the two. Obviously

08:48they cannot be exact equals because the 45-year-old one has had greater chances to

08:55gain maturity. The chance means the age, the experience. He has had 45 years, this one has

09:02had only 17 years and even of these 17 years a lot have been spent in childhood. So the 45-year-old

09:09one has an advantage but still the two can talk and relate. But where there is a great power

09:17difference and a traditional hierarchy and a patriarchal role definition, their friendship

09:27becomes impossible. People can be friendly to each other, characters cannot be friendly to

09:34each other. If you are just role-playing as a son and the father is role-playing as a traditional

09:40father then there can be no friendliness. A 17-year-old man can be friendly with a

09:5047-year-old man. That is possible. But characters know no love. And it happens,

10:09it has been happening since ages. The wise ones have always treated their kids as equals. They

10:22can have a free conversation with. Whereas if you are power-oriented and just patriarchy driven,

10:46then you will never be friendly even with your brother, let alone your son. You will say,

10:56I am the elder brother. I have the right to rule. How can there be a discussion among equals?

11:04So as far as you are concerned, start looking your father as a man. Try thinking of him less

11:26in terms of the role he is playing and more in terms of the individual he is. Think of him as

11:36a person. Here in front of me stands a person. The person has a certain age but nevertheless he is

11:43a person. The person deserves respect by virtue of his age and experience and the good things he

11:54has brought to me in life. Nevertheless he is a person. When that happens, then there is a healthy

12:02relationship. Same applies to mothers and daughters. Same applies to fathers and daughters.

12:15Same applies to mothers and sons. Same applies to brothers and sisters. This applies to everybody.

12:23And husbands and wives, everybody.

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