Hello I thought I would share with my readers about joint family culture in India. Even though joint families have decreased in numbers and nuclear families have increased I got the opportunity and pleasure to be in a joint family as soon as I got married. 
When I got married I was too young and my husband's family was settled in Noida a place near New Delhi. I belong to the southern most part of India from a small town called Nagercoil. My husband's family also belong to the same place but got settled in Delhi as my Father in law was in the air force. My husband was brought up and studied in almost all parts of Northern India as my father in law was in the air force and gets transferred from one place to another.
So after my marriage we stayed with my in laws . Including me there were 5 of us in the family. Myself, my husband, bro in law, my mom and dad in law. There are many advantages of being in a joint family. The first thing is I dint know hindi. Our mother tongue is tamil. I Guess all know that in India people of different states speak different languages. So staying in the joint family not knowing Hindi was not at all a problem and after 2-3 months I became a pro in speaking Hindi. Even though friends laugh at me the way I pronounce some of the words lolz :)) The second thing is am a pro not in cooking only eating:) I don't even know to make a coffee really ashamed of myself now when I think of that. My mom in law is a very very kind woman and she never forced me to cook in the kitchen. But I slowly learnt cooking from her and I must mention here my mom in law is a great cook and she is a pro in cooking both north and south Indian food.
Every year my mom in law goes to her sister's place for vacation for a month and at that time I used to take over all the responsibility of the house and that is how I learnt to manage house hold responsibilities. My father in law wakes up around 5.30am in the morning and he needs coffee as soon as he gets up. So I used to wake up around 5.00am and make coffee , then prepare breakfast and lunch and my husband and father in law after having break fast goes off to the office and come back for lunch. My bro in law and me are of almost the same age so we used to have nice chats and sometimes he makes tea, bread toast for him and also for me.
After 2 years of my marriage my son was born and that was the time I knew and got the most of the benefit of staying in a joint family. My mom in law, bro in law and father in law took turns to look after my son. I did not feel tired for a single second being a mother as my family was with me to support. Mothers know how hard is to look after and bringing up kids all alone. But I never felt that and my son grew in the joint family pampered by grand parents and also getting nice shouts from us parents. Now as a teenager he is a very affectionate and well behaved and most importantly a very kind hearted kid with good morals.I personally believe most of these qualities came to him because we stayed as a joint family for a long time. Unlike some of the teenage kids he is very close to me and share everything with me that happened in the school and before having his lunch after coming from school he never misses to ask me to have lunch with him. Iam very sure that my son would never choose the wrong way in life and would be a responsible citizen. I strongly believe that staying in a joint family will definitely have a good impact on future generation although there are pros and cons. After all every thing in life has its own pros and cons and staying in a joint family has lot of pros compared to cons.
To end with we are not in a joint family now as my in laws got settled in their home town and sadly my father in law who was a great support to our family passed away 2 years back suddenly of a massive attack leaving us alone. But I still have lot of sweet memories with me of staying in a joint family which I miss so much. Please let me know your views about joint family in the form of comments I love to hear your opinions.
