Money, Indian parents and a sense of entitlement

" Na biwi na baccha na baap bada na bhaiyya,
   The whole thing is that ,
   Ke bhaiyya sabse bada rupaiyya"
Translation : 'Nor your wife, kid, father or brother, is as important as money' !!
Wait a minute, this isn't some new age philosophy I'm spitting out, it's a famous bollywood song from the 70's.
It's a satirical song which describes how money is taking precedence over relationships in modern times .


Indians have a very peculiar attitude towards money in general. We belong to a basically poor country, we grow up seeing poverty all around us, naked, hungry kids roaming the streets, poor, homeless people begging, are all a common sight in almost any place . This kind of puts a fear of sorts towards money and wealth in our minds, fear in the sense of wanting to protect what we have . I'm mainly talking of middle class working Indians here, I don't have the perspective of the rich of India, since I'm not one, and don't know anyone who belongs to that category .
This does not mean that other cultures don't want to protect their money, but Indian's take it to a whole another level . Budgeting, saving and all are very important values that are instilled in Indian kids growing up from very early on.
There's a hindi saying that goes ' Chadar dekh ke pair failao' ( stretch your feet only as long as the sheets/covers go) which is meant to imply that one should try to stay within their means . Most indians live by this . This kind of behaviour once learnt, rarely goes away . I see many Indians who live abroad, and they even though are well-off financially, will still be dedicated to save every dime, this is why Indians usually get termed as misers or stingy.
There's another reason why Indians focus on saving so much is culturally they have obligations to fulfill, towards their parents and kids . It's not just limited to raising and kids and providing for their needs, in most middle class households, it means that parents will fully fund their kids' education, no matter how expensive, and their weddings, in addition they may have to look after their aging parents, even if they aren't physically near them (say in another country), they still have to provide money for their needs, and fund illnesses if any.
 Now, why is it that Indian's have a cultural obligation towards providing for their kids and parents ??
Well, the answer lies in the old practice of the Hindu Undivided Family or (HUF) . Traditionally, hindus especially lives in joint families, where brother's and their wives and their kids and their parents all lived together as one unit. if you click on the link , you'll get more information, but in a nutshell, it's a practice, where individual incomes and wealth is pooled together and combined as the families wealth . It then gets distributed down to the next generation, until recently women weren't included in this inheritance, which is what initially gave way to the practice of dowry ( will share my thoughts on dowry in another post ) , in those days dowry was a way to give the girl her share of the property. But now, the courts have included the female child as an equal stake holder in the property, and she gets an equal share to the son/s.
Even  though in modern times, this practice is all but gone, the mentality does still continue, of the wealth being that of the family, and not just the individual, this even though most of the people have self-earned wealth and very little to nothing that's inherited . Indian parents continue to think that everything they have/own/possess, belongs to their children eventually, and the children have a right over it. Parents consider expenses such as education, wedding, even housing for their children as their expenses, their responsibilities.
Grand parents telling their grand kids that everything they have is theirs (i.e the grand kids') isn't an uncommon thing to hear. My own mom , if I get on her about spending too much on me or my daughter, replies, well, who is all this for ??
It's not an uncommon thing for some parents to buy a piece of property or house for their kids, when they get married, infact some parents do so to be modern, or show that they are broad -minded, like showing, that they don't expect their son and his new wife, to move in with them, and are okay with them setting up their own separate household.
As a matter of fact my own in-laws recently purchased another home, a few years back, they said they were doing it as an investment, and were gonna rent it out, but instead my BIL has moved into that house ( my BIL is a whole another topic, so more on that in a different post) , and he isn't paying them any rent, and infact they even pay for the utilities on that house as well...have tried talking to them, but it's in vain...:(  . They throw the same old line in our face, "it's gonna be his eventually, anyway, so what does it matter if he's living in it ?" UGhh....
My mom has 2 close friends, both of whom helped out their kids with their homes, 1st one, bought another flat right in their building, where their only son and his wife could live after marriage, the other gave their son $100,000 or 50 lakh rupees to buy a flat, he took a loan for some amount, and got himself a sweet pad in central Mumbai. I mean I can go on and on about such stories, the point is that it isn't at all uncommon to find cases like these .
I know people who have taken loans for their kids education, the children taking a student loan on their own in unheard of, except of some cases, where the kids go abroad to study, and know they'll be making good money after graduating, enough to pay off the loan soon . 
 There's a an unwanted side-effect of this practice, many a times the kids grow up with a sense of entitlement, thinking it's their parents' duty to provide for them, including funding education, weddings, and homes etc. It's all taken for granted, with no gratitude to the parents for this.
I really never realized that there are countries/cultures in the world where parents didn't/didn't have to pay for everything , until I moved out of India. Now, I do see the drawbacks in the practice as well, whereas earlier I looked at it from an angle that, people choose to have kids, so they should pay for them .
I consciously try to be aware of this as i'm trying to raise my daughter (even though she's way too young right now) . Also, when possible, I try talking to people back home, giving them my perspective on this issue, but most of the times, my views are looked at as too radical, so I back off sometimes. I do however, see some change in the attitudes of my contemporaries, so slowly but surely there is a shift in mindset occurring, whether it will be enough to raise a generation of Indians who don't find anything wrong with running to mom/dad for money issues...only time will tell...