Very nice topic.
What I have noticed is, children who have been brought up single handedly by moms without dads are more stronger, mature and practical, where as on the other hand children brought up by fathers are more pampered. This difference is maybe because when you dont have a father, children feel compelled to contribute and help their mom in managing the house and outside committments. But when you have a father, you dont feel you need to tackle any problems on ur own as ur dad will do it for u.
In case of loss of a mom, widowed fathers in most cases see to it that his children never sense the absense of their mom in their life and try their best to keep them happy with whatever resources he has, in most cases materialistic fulfillment. And specially with daughters, they need their mom more especially till they complete their adolescent period as they go through lot of physical, mental and emotional changes which only a mom can understand. Absense of a mom in the life of a daughter is definitely a big loss!
In case of loss of a dad also the child is affected big time. In many cases, women are dependant on their husbands, and once the husband passes away, they feel totally disabled and helpless. So they make attempts to single handedly raise children and deal with problems. If the child is slightly big enough to see their mom struggling, they learn to support their mom in whatever way they can. They start becoming more responsible and duty bound much early in life due to their circumstances and absense of a responsible family head. Thus life teaches them lot of things in their growing phase itself and thereby such children become more practical, mature & independant in life, compared to many of their age.
So you see, the loss of either of the parent affects a child's life. Both the father and the mother are important in their own ways.
But in case of Ishan's family, since its a joint family, the absense of a parent will not pinch a child more as there are soo many female and male members who generally satisfactorily fulfils the role of a parent, so that in the long run the child doesnt miss his/her parent much. Though the loss of a parent can never be replaced, but can definitely be substituted in such cases with a big loving joint family! When there is so much of love around in different forms (aunts, uncles, cousins, bhabhis, buas, etc) eventually the child will successfully adjust without having to face much emotional setbacks.
Edited by *dewdrop~pearl* - 15 years ago
