PIW – Parent Induced Wastefulness

When parents strive to give their children the best of everything at an early age, they are sowing seeds for materially insatiable monsters that are prone to sloth, apathy, avarice and fear.

Don’t stand in self- defense as yet. I have proof.
As I sit in my counselor’s chair day after day I encounter an altogether a new disorder that I have come to label as-
Parent Induced Wastefulness (PIW).

Here are a few examples:

**26-year-old Manas does not want to finish his Engineering degree because he does not ‘feel like’ studying.
But he harasses his parents every day for money.
He tells me that whenever he did not feel like doing any particular activity, his parents told him he can quit.
They always said they did not want him to get ‘stressed’ like they were when growing up.

**34-year-old Raghav is a qualified Engineer and is married for 2 years but his wife is not ready to live with him hence the counseling.
He is qualified alright but refuses to stick to any job as it makes him feel stressed!
Every two months he runs back home from work and wants his parents to solve his problem like they did every time he refused to go to school.

**28 years old Anjali does not want to go back to her one-year-old marriage because it is too much for her to work in the office and then look after the household.
She wants her mother to come and live with her and do the household work.

There are many others…
but all originating in overzealous parents wanting to protect their children from even the smallest discomfort in childhood.
You love them alright, but when you shield them from the adversities of life, what you are doing is bringing them up in a sterile environment.

The result:
The moment they are exposed to the world their immunity buckles up and they stand threadbare wanting to run away from everything that is anything but comfortable.

They have to live in this very world and away from you.
Do you really love them?
Or do you love yourself more?
If it is them, then you would ensure to make them future ready- let them face, talk to them, provide support, but let them face housework, studies, bullying and adversities.
Tell them money is limited and let them learn to hear a lot of ‘NO’.
That’s what makes them ‘FUTURE READY’.

– Dr. Sapna Sharma
Psychotherapist, Spiritual Counselor, LIfe Reinvention Coach & Motivational speaker.