Parents in newly affluent households are increasingly under pressure to concede to every whim and demand of children. As a result Gen Z children with an overweening sense of impunity and entitlement are running amok countrywide -Kiran Balimane & Cynthia JohnRapid growth and expansion of India’s upper middle class after the landmark industry liberalisation and deregulation reforms which began in 1991 — currently 10 percent of the population controls 57 percent of national income and wealth and the country hosts 764,000 dollar millionaires — has infected an estimated 30 million households countrywide with a problem described by sociologists as ‘affluenza parenting’ — wealthy, affluent parents over-indulging their children. Increasingly, parents in newly affluent households are under pressure to concede to every whim and demand of children. As a result, Gen Z children with an overweening sense of impunity and entitlement are running amok countrywide. As nuclear households with both parents working become normative in urban India, the dynamics of parent-child relationships are changing radically. Within the country’s newly rich bourgeoisie, it has suddenly become politically incorrect to discipline children and deny them instant gratification. ‘My children right or wrong’ is becoming a normative sentiment and the newly emergent selfie and Instagram generation is taking full advantage of permissive parenting often with disastrous consequences. On May 19, a 17-year-old teen driving a luxury Porsche motor-car at 200 kmph rammed into a motorbike, killing two 24-year-old IT professionals, in Pune. Earlier that evening, the teen, son of a prominent real estate developer in the city, had celebrated his satisfactory class XII board exam results at a pub with friends. According to media reports, his grandfather, after consulting the father, had handed over a credit card and keys to the Rs.1.6 crore sports car to the adolescent. After partying at two pubs where he ran up a bill of Rs.69,000, the teen wanted to drive himself home. The chauffeur claims he gave the keys to him only after taking the father’s permission. Since then, the 17-year-old, charged as a juvenile under the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015, is out on bail after submitting a 300-word essay on road safety. The Pune Porsche case and several similar incidents have sparked widespread public outrage and debate in the media and social media especially parents chat rooms about the pitfalls of affluenza parenting. Are middle class parents equating paternal love and care for children with permissive over-indulgence? Questions are being raised about what prevented parents of the Pune teen, who snuffed out two promising lives in a jiffy, from prohibiting their under-age son from consuming alcohol and driving — both illegal acts. These and associated questions are being debated in parents’ WhatsApp and social media messaging groups. “Parenting is hard, for anyone at any income level. There is no user manual, standard operating procedure or even a best practices guide. We can end up (sic) being too strict or hard on the child, hurting their independence and growth. We can also be too lenient, which could translate…
