Family - The Most Manipulative Tool Of Our Society.

Family – The Most Manipulative Tool Of Our Society.

Family. I wonder what is the first word that comes in your head, when you read it. Care? Love? Support? The human mind is such a strange thing that when it is given the task of sketching out something; it maps it out in the way, he/she has experienced things. When I think of family, the first thing that comes to my head is; manipulation.

To me, family is the institute which manipulates you, to the end. We live in a society where we’re often told the importance of family. The rights of family. But never, the duties of family. We’re manipulated as individuals from the tiniest to the biggest things. The most common manipulation, I’ve seen people of my age face is, choosing a career which interests one’s parents, not himself/herself. And the reason, I believe is that they want to satisfy their egos. They want their heads held up high when they tell the world that their kid is a doctor or an engineer. At that very precise moment, they completely forget about  the lectures they’ve given us all our life that; these all are a worldly possessions.

It’s good to have a good profession. I don’t deny that. But the reason that doctors and engineers are respected is that they earn loads of money. At first place, we’re taught to not get caught up in the worldly things. As per the Sunnah and Holy Quran. And then, this greed is filled in us.

More than often I’ve seen how parents and other family members manipulate their younger ones and at times elders, to do what they were reluctant to do. For the sole reason that, they didn’t have the guts to stand up and take responsibility of their erroneous actions.

Manipulation can be expected from our friends, too. But it’s not as harrowing as the family one. We are one hypocrite society. We are blackmailed by our families in the name of Allah, when in reality, they’ve turned their backs to Him.

Allah says in Ayat 12 of Surah Yunus of Holy Quran:

“And when affliction touches man, he calls upon Us, whether lying on his side or sitting or standing; but when We remove from him his affliction, he continues [in disobedience] as if he had never called upon Us to [remove] an affliction that touched him. Thus is made pleasing to the transgressors that which they have been doing”

This is our reality. This is who we are. This is what our society is. Yet, we are almost always blackmailed in the name of Allah. Whether it may be right or wrong, it doesn’t matter. We’re told the honour of parents our religion tells us and how it is very important to nod to your parents’ command. Our religion doesn’t tells us to nod to the wrong commands of our parents. It has not given them the authority to take our rights away from us.

Do as your parents ask you to do or you’ll have to face the wrath of Allah. I find this line funny and sad. I’ve mainly restricted this article to the manipulation of children by parents but that’s not always the case. Often parents are manipulated by kids, husbands by wives and wives by husbands. It has unfortunately become an undisruptive cycle. I do not know how this will ever end.