Are Middle-Class Families Teaching Their Kids To Give up in Life?
How middle-class conditioning quietly teaches kids to accept failure — and why that's worth questioning.
A couple of weeks back, I wanted to eat chapati for dinner. My mom and wife decided to make dosa for themselves. I went to the grocery store near my house to get ready-made chapatis, but they didn’t have any. I went to another shop on the same street, but the ones they had had expired the day before. So I came back home to take my motorcycle to go to the nearby supermarket.
When I was about to step out, my mom said “Why try so hard for a pack of chapatis? If you’re meant to have chapati today, you would’ve gotten it by now. I don’t think you’re meant to. Be home and I’ll make some dosas for you.”
I nodded my head but told my mom that I want to give it a shot. I went to the supermarket and came back with a pack of ready-made chapatis.
A small incident made me realize the difference between giving up and going the extra mile.
The Fox and the Grape — the Only Story We Remember
A lot of times we give up and compromise when we’re on the brink of achieving something we wanted. A lot of the kids who belong to middle-class and lower-middle-class families are often told that good things happen if they’re destined to happen to them.
Since our childhood, we’ve been conditioned to believe that. And, we cling to this specific life lesson because it indirectly tells us that giving up is okay. Even now, of all the stories we came across in our childhood, we only remember the “Fox and the Grape” story from Aesop fables.
The Middle-class Rule book
As kids of middle-class families, we were asked to put in all the hard work only when it came to studies. Nobody encouraged us to take up art, writing, or entrepreneurship. Starting a business is considered taboo but my parents always admired the hard work of billionaires and would say “See! This is hard work” when they read about Steve Jobs or Elon Musk. For some weird reason, our parents believe that one can become Bezos or Elon by working in a 9 to 5 job.
As kids and young adults, we’re always encouraged to get jobs and asked not to think about anything else. “Work hard. Get settled. And, then do whatever you want.”
We were never taught to chase our dreams, or go the extra mile, or give it our everything before giving up. We were quoted Bhagavat Geetha or sweet proverbs like “Do your best. God will do the rest.”
Looking back, I realize that proverbs like these are so believable they made us too comfortable and stopped us from taking risks.
A missed opportunity
In 2013, I quit my job as a junior software developer in a big corporation to pursue a career in photography. I was not good at being a software developer and I felt I was taking up space that someone really good at frontend development could use. I was also getting some wedding and travel photography assignments that gave me the confidence to quit.
For the next five months, I was busy. I shot at a bunch of weddings and was making decent money. One of my lecturers offered me money to help me set up my own studio. But, I denied it as I strongly believed I could pull this off without external support.
Not long after that, things started going downhill. I stopped getting orders and the sales cycle got longer. In Tamilnadu, there are a couple of months where there won’t be any weddings. I didn’t know that back then. Two months without much income and my parents were worried. They started convincing me saying they were afraid this would happen. They said maybe I wasn’t meant to be in the photography business.
It made sense. So, I joined as an academic writer for a salary that was one-third of what I was earning at photography. I gave up photography because I believed that I wasn’t meant to succeed. How stupid! Looking back, this is one of the very few decisions I regret in my life. I should’ve stayed around — it was only six months since I started! If I stuck around, I would’ve bounced back.
When to Give up?
Giving up is okay. But, it shouldn’t be your first option. As parents, you should teach your kids to exhaust all their options before giving up. As individuals, we should learn to follow our gut feeling. If something tells you to stick around even after exhausting all your options, you should. You may be right.
It is time for us to stop teaching kids the Fox and the grape story and teach our kids the story of Robert the Bruce and the Spider. Always teach your kids to go the extra mile. That’s where life’s valuable lessons are hidden.