2022 was a year that my family had come to dread, my father had been talking about his retirement a lot subsequently followed by long stretches of existential rant. That year he arranged his affairs — pension applications, health insurance, and cover for the whole family.
My father, like scores of desi dads, derived his sense of pride, meaning, and power from his job. This forced me to look around.
Om Prakash, the retired IAS officer who served the Bihar government for 33 years describes his retirement as a vacuum of feeling unimportant and powerless.
Om Prakash, the retired IAS officer who served the Bihar government for 33 years describes his retirement as a vacuum of feeling unimportant and powerless. ‘Your hectic routine, meetings, calls, WhatsApp is blowing up and you feel needed . . . one fine morning you wake up and all of it coming to a grinding halt,’ he says. He adds that his ex-colleagues have passed away months after their retirement, some have fallen into substance abuse and a lot of them are suffering from severe mental health crises.
This feeling is better described as the experience of nothingness, a psychological concept that is characterised by negative emotions such as feelings of meaningless, helplessness, feeling of existing in a vacuum, and a loss of control, often linked to individuals facing retirement.
Akanksha’s father G* (Name retracted for anonymity) a civil engineer in the automobile industry retired as an esteemed VP and was looking forward to retired life but what followed was his father’s demise that triggered a crisis. ‘We found him to be unresponsive on calls…he started sleeping in..not moving around at all. It wasn’t like him at all. We had to push him to get an Ultrasound and we found out it was several clinical depression’ says Akanksha.
She shares that most older men who walk into her sessions; break down and admit to a feeling of isolation and fear of being perceived as weak when they talk about this fear.
Megha Mawandia is a family therapist and the founder of Triyoke Raising Parents — dealing with family dynamics, marriage, and inner child healing. She shares that most older men who walk into her sessions; break down and admit to a feeling of isolation and fear of being perceived as weak when they talk about this fear. ‘The automatic response is to numb it. Because now they have the time and space to feel things’, she says.
Young nation, old problems.
‘From the moment the boys are born they are celebrated like they are the savior of the family. . . They are going to pull them out of generational trauma … That’s a very heavy burden to carry..’
About G*, his family says, ‘he funded his education from the age of 14-15 after his masters his father told him you can do more and it was very strongly imprinted on him . . . . he not only takes care of us but his siblings and his cousins.’
Being a young independent nation, our current retirees were the first generation of independent India who were to work, provide, and make their mark. In most middle- class, low-income, working homes, fathers are not only feeding their own nuclear families but are also providing for their whole generation to have a better standard of living.
In most middle- class, low-income, working homes, fathers are not only feeding their own nuclear families but are also providing for their whole generation to have a better standard of living.
Om Prakash recalls feeling immense pressure patrolling during communal riots, election duties, and one particular incident where he was called in for an emergency meeting when he had suffered a sudden blood pressure rise and had to be rushed to the hospital. ‘It hurt me because none of my colleagues even asked me about it . . . I wanted to leave my job that very day but I continued because I had a family and my children were young,’ he says.
This inevitable existential crisis can be attributed to a mix of generational trauma, immense pressure, and unrealistic expectations attached to the patriarchs. And we might be complicit.
Line of control for Desi fathers
Since desi households are a hotbed of unresolved trauma and interpersonal conflicts, they are more likely to be activated when fathers start spending more time at home. Megha explains how in most homes there isn’t a negotiation in this ecosystem.
The zone for control of fathers has been their place of work, for mothers it’s the home. When the two worlds collide, women can feel their space is being encroached upon. In G*’s case this transfer was quite evident. ‘I remember my father started talking to me and my mother like he was speaking to his subordinates… I remember standing up to him then and telling him off. You can’t talk to us like that’, says his daughter.
In both M* (Name retracted for anonymity) and in Akanksha’s cases, their fathers’ retirement also became a source of anxiety and grief. About his father, M* says: ‘He is 50 now and still won’t let me help him with his bags..he holds on to his ego… When I got my first job of course he was happy and proud but I could sense some shame in him that I was earning more than him.’
For Akanksha, her father’s mental health crisis impacted her mental health. Aside from the anxiety of seeing her father being incapacitated, she also had to manage the emotions of her entire household. ‘I was extremely stressed when tax season came around and I had to sit with my father’s CA and figure out everything..it was overwhelming and extremely scary’ she says.
This begs the question: how do we stand up to patriarchs when they are projecting or spiraling? The liberty and privilege to retire doesn’t even out physiologically colonised behaviours.
This begs the question: how do we stand up to patriarchs when they are projecting or spiraling?
Megha adds, ‘We don’t necessarily stand up enough for injustice. And to stand up for injustice towards the person who you’re supposed to be so grateful to provide you with this life …who has made sacrifices… Even to talk about it is a denial of the sacrifices instead of a healthy discussion of how we can make things better.’
The second innings for our fathers
When we speak of mending relationships, retirement might have a slight upside. When fathers aren’t directing their energies at activities that are geared towards making money, they embrace their individual needs. These can even stand straight in the face of challenging gender roles and destigmatise the gendered nature of self-care. These even open up an alleyway for young adults to have a shared interest with their fathers.
For as long as M* can remember, his father was expressive in the kitchen but it was only after his self-imposed retirement he became experimental with it. ‘If someone was sick is home he would make sure even the khichdi was tasty. It was his love language after a fight he would cook for my mom and we would play porter to transport the food to her’ he says.
For Akanksha, her father picked up yoga and TT to focus on his health and singing out loud at birthday parties and family functions. ‘Now he convinces me to get married while striking a vrikshasana pose …. And his singing has brought my parents closer because my mother has always been musical’, she says.
When fathers aren’t directing their energies at activities that are geared towards making money, they embrace their individual needs.
Om Prakash’s retirement has allowed him to do something he always wanted to: teach. He now runs a YT channel- Voice of Republic to share his experiences at the job with students who aspire to qualify for civil services. His tips for anyone going to retire? Plan, save, and invest.
Which leads us to our conclusion: in a hyper-capitalistic world with high inflation is it even possible for future generations to have a relaxed retired life?
The future of retirement
A study performed by Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman showed that we make financial decisions based 90 percent on emotion and 10 percent on logic.
So for most Gen Z and upcoming Gen Alphas, who have been brought up on instant gratifications and wrestle with a lot of uncertainty, long-term investments and savings are a distant dream. By extension so is the dream for an early retirement.
