Generations

There is never a shortage of people willing to offer advice in a person’s life. Some speak in the name of parents, while others invoke family, religion, tradition, community, honour, experience or love. Voices come from every direction, saying: Do this, do not do that, accept this marriage proposal, reject that one, stay here, do not go there, marry this person, abandon that decision, otherwise people will talk, the family will be disappointed and the parents’ hearts will be broken. Since human beings do not live alone, but within relationships, family structures and society, listening to the opinions of others is natural and sometimes necessary. The problem does not lie in seeking advice. It begins when a person suspends reason, conscience and responsibility and hands control of life over to the voices of others.

Seeking advice is not weakness, but turning every piece of advice into one’s destiny without thinking is certainly a weakness. The experience of others may warn a person of possible danger, but no one else can live that person’s life. Whether a decision is made under family pressure, according to the wishes of relatives or out of fear of society, its consequences must eventually be carried by the person whose life was decided. A marriage may be arranged according to the family’s wishes, but two people must live within that relationship every morning and every night. If a daughter’s life is restricted in the name of honour, the other members of the family do not carry the silence, fear and broken confidence that develop within her. If a son is buried beneath the weight of the family business, name and expectations, the unrest accumulates in his own heart. Parents may force a child into the form they prefer, but the pain of losing personal identity must be endured by the child.

People offer advice and return to their own homes. Relatives discuss the matter for a few days, the community makes noise for a while and then becomes occupied with something new. The person whose life was decided, however, must live with that decision for many years and sometimes for an entire lifetime. One basic truth of life is therefore clear: A decision may be handed over to others, but its consequences cannot.

Human beings often claim full credit when the outcome is good. They say it was their understanding, their decision and the right step at the right time. When the outcome is bad, however, a long list of guilty parties suddenly appears. The family, circumstances, spouse, children, society, the West, religion, fate or even the will of God may be blamed. Such behaviour may provide temporary comfort, but it does not produce intellectual or moral maturity. A mature person is not someone who attributes every success to personal intelligence and every failure to the mistakes of others. A mature person is someone who has the courage to say: I listened to the advice, but the final decision was mine. If it was wrong, I will learn from it. If it was right, I will accept it with responsibility rather than pride.

Personal responsibility does not mean that a person must blame himself or herself for every misfortune in life. No one controls everything. Accidents happen, illness appears, economic conditions change, people break their promises, relationships collapse and legal or social problems arise unexpectedly. Some decisions are made with good intentions, but circumstances alter their results. Even so, it is not honest to place everything that was within one’s control entirely in the account of fate. Accepting responsibility for a decision made through one’s own choice is awareness. Understanding and enduring what lies outside one’s control is part of life. But calling every mistake fate and every success personal wisdom is not fair.

In migrant families, this conflict becomes even deeper. On one side stand the old country, inherited traditions, the community, religious and social pressure, the expectations of relatives and the fear of the question: “What will people say?” On the other side stand a new country, a different legal system, new forms of education, the changing thinking of children, individual freedom, the rights of women and men and a different understanding of marriage and relationships. If a person standing between these two worlds does not use reason and conscience, he or she remains pulled in every direction. The person may live physically in a new country while remaining mentally imprisoned in old streets, old fears and old restrictions.

This contradiction becomes especially visible when someone demands every right and opportunity from the new society, but fears granting those same rights to the children at home. The person lives in a free society, yet expects a form of obedience from the children that resembles submission. The person leaves the homeland to improve personal circumstances, yet refuses the children the right to decide freely about their own future. The protection of the law is demanded for oneself, while personal will is treated as more important than the law inside the family.

Such a person may appear to be making an independent decision, but many other voices are actually speaking within it. The mother’s wish, the father’s honour, the uncle’s opinion, the aunt’s displeasure, community pressure, relatives’ whispers, a personal interpretation of religion and fear of social gossip all become part of the decision. When the result later goes badly, the person says there was no choice, the family applied pressure, the parents wanted it and people would have talked. The question nevertheless remains: Why did you so easily hand the decision about a life whose burden you had to carry over to other people?

This question is harsh, but necessary, particularly in matters of marriage and children. If parents determine their children’s marriages solely on the basis of family preference, community, social background, wealth or social pressure, they cannot completely separate themselves from the possible consequences of those marriages. If they treat a daughter as a container for the family’s honour, they must also hear the breathing of the human being locked inside that container. If they see a son only as the family’s heir and ignore his personal preferences, emotional needs and right to his own life, they cannot later blame his unrest entirely on the younger generation or Western society.

It is also a profound contradiction when parents give a child the education, language, legal awareness and confidence of a new world, but then become angry when the child thinks and asks questions. Teaching a child to think and then objecting to that thinking is contradictory. Providing education and later describing the child’s opinion as disrespect is unjust. Raising the child in a self-determined society while demanding complete family control over private life creates an inner conflict for which the parents also bear responsibility.

Children observe the actions of their parents more than their intentions. They notice whether there is space at home for their voices to be heard, or whether they are expected only to obey. They recognise whether disagreement is allowed or silence is compulsory, whether there is love or fear, guidance or pressure, respect or a sense of ownership. If every decision is made in the name of family, honour, community or religious pressure, the child learns that a person is not the owner of his or her own life, but a worker for the expectations of others.

That lesson is then passed from one generation to the next. The first generation does not decide; it merely obeys. The second generation interprets that obedience as tradition. The third calls it honour, and the fourth gives it religious or cultural sanctity. Then one day a girl, a boy or another person stands up and asks: How can a decision about my life be made without hearing my voice? At that moment the family believes that a rebellion has begun, although perhaps someone has simply tried to think independently for the first time.

Not every question is disobedience, not every difference of opinion is disrespect and not every different path represents hostility towards the family. Sometimes the question is simply: Where is my own voice in my own life? To hear that question, however, a family must possess enough courage to look beyond authority and see the human being.

Thinking is not easy because it does not merely teach a person to examine others; it also forces the person to look inward. One must accept that not everything inherited is correct. Respect for elders is important, but not every one of their ideas is an eternal law. Not every old tradition is sacred and not every family rule is just. What was necessary in the circumstances of one generation may be harmful to another. What parents experience as protection may feel like imprisonment to a child. What appears to the family as honour may become fear for a daughter and lifelong suffocation for a son.

This is where the true test of a person begins. Will inherited thinking be passed to the next generation without examination, or will the person develop the courage to separate what is good from what is harmful? Will children be loved, or will personal fears be imposed upon them in the name of love? Will a daughter be protected, or will guards be placed around her life? Will a son be strengthened, or made a prisoner of family expectations? Will marriage be understood as a relationship between two adults, or as an agreement between the egos of two families? Will religion be used for morality, justice and compassion, or as a means of controlling others? Will tradition be preserved as a source of identity and love, or used as a weapon of authority and silence?

These questions disturb people, but sometimes that discomfort is the first sign of awareness. A person who never questions personal decisions, behaviour or inherited thinking may appear content, but remains far from the door of change.

Real change in any society does not come from changing laws alone. A new country may offer opportunities, education may open doors to new ideas, the law may protect the individual and society may create an environment of freedom and equality. Yet if a person is not internally prepared to think, the old prison will be rebuilt in every new place. The person may live in Europe while still ruling the home with the same old commands. The person may live in a free society while fearing a daughter’s freedom. The law may be used to defend personal rights, while the rights of children are dismissed as a private family matter.

This contradiction cannot remain hidden forever. Eventually relationships suffer, children become silent and the distance between parents and children grows. Parents say that the children have changed. The children say that the parents never understood them. Love may exist on both sides, but fear, pride, silence and incomplete communication stand between that love like a wall.

Personal responsibility does not mean becoming selfish, cutting oneself off from the family, rejecting every piece of advice or turning personal desire into the final law. That is not freedom, but the opposite extreme. Personal responsibility means listening to advice but deciding thoughtfully. It means respecting the family without sacrificing one’s entire life or the lives of one’s children to family wishes. It means understanding tradition without placing it above reason, justice and humanity. It means using religion as a source of morality, compassion and responsibility, not as a weapon of fear and control. A person who demands freedom must also respect the freedom of others. A person who decides about personal life must also accept responsibility for the consequences.

A life cannot be built from borrowed decisions. A person who makes every decision according to the voices of others spends every bad outcome searching for someone to blame. A person who decides through reason, conscience and responsibility learns even from mistakes. The peace remains that this path was chosen consciously.

Perhaps the greatest freedom of a human being is the ability to carry the burden of one’s own life. A person should not become arrogant over success, should not run from mistakes and should listen to others without losing the personal voice. Parents who understand this do not lose their children. They allow them to think, listen to them and offer their experience without turning it into handcuffs. They warn them of danger without placing guards at every door of life. They give children roots without cutting off their branches. Such children remain connected to their parents even from a distance because the relationship is based not on fear, but on trust.

Parents who do not understand this difference often impose control in the name of love, fear in the name of honour, imprisonment in the name of tradition and silence in the name of upbringing. When their children eventually use their own voices, the parents complain that the children have changed. Perhaps the children have not changed. Perhaps they simply want the right to be heard in decisions about their own lives.

Relationships remain safe when one person sees another as a human being rather than property. A marriage succeeds when two adults understand their responsibilities, boundaries, rights and decisions, not when two families impose their will. Children remain connected to their roots when those roots provide support rather than suffocation. Respect for parents remains strong when it grows from character, justice and love, rather than fear.

The real conflict between generations is not about clothing, language, lifestyle or countries. It is about thought and authority. One generation says: We endured it, so you must endure it too. The next asks: If it was wrong, why should we repeat it? One generation sees obedience as character; another sees questioning as awareness. One generation calls silence honour; another regards having a voice as a basic right. Only dialogue can build a bridge between them, not commands; respect, not fear; understanding, not ownership.

If every generation passes its pain, fear, incomplete dreams and harmful traditions to the next without examination, the family does not move forward. It merely transfers its wounds. The father’s fear becomes the son’s restriction, the mother’s deprivation becomes the daughter’s destiny, and the silence of the elders becomes an order for the younger generation. Years later, no one knows where the chain began. Everyone simply says: This is how it has always been in our family.

But “this is how it has always been” is not proof that something is right. A mistake remains a mistake even if it is a hundred years old. Injustice does not become justice merely because it becomes tradition. Fear does not become love because it is called honour. Control does not become freedom because it is called upbringing.

Every generation faces a choice. It can pass old wounds to the next generation, or stop the chain at its own point. It can decide: What happened to us will not happen to our children. We will offer advice, but not take away their decisions. We will pass on traditions, but not close the door to reason. We will ask for respect, but not create fear. We will allow our children to become conscious human beings of the future rather than copies of our past.

The true progress of generations is not merely that children receive more education, earn more money or live in a better country than their parents. Real progress is that they become freer than their parents’ fears, more aware than their mistakes and stronger through the good parts of their upbringing. If the new generation does not move even one step beyond the old, what purpose does human development serve?

In the end, the matter is simple. Advice will be abundant, voices will come from every direction, fears will block the path, traditions will offer arguments in their own defence and the family will present its expectations. But each person must live his or her own life. A person who does not have the courage to decide about that life cannot fully achieve its peace either. And a generation that learns to decide through reason, conscience and responsibility does not merely change its own life. It also breaks an old chain in the destiny of the generations that follow.

Shahid Shakil

2026-07-18