I woke up on Sunday morning and, while gathering myself, I looked at The New York Times (NYT) app, which has disappointed with its wilful one-sided reporting since October 7, 2023. Still, it is better than the desi news portals. For Indian news, I prefer to wait for the physical newspapers. The NYT magazine carried a long-form interview, and its headline made me want to bellow with rage.
It read: “Dr. Lindsay C. Gibson Thinks Compassion for Parents Can Be a Trap.” She is a psychotherapist who shot to fame with her 2015 book, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents. (In fact, it went viral after other therapists TikTok-ed it.) Trust the Americans—with their culture of overeating, reckless spending, and oversharing (and the daily Trump show)—to extend their infantilism to the public space and make therapy the USA’s actual first language. Maybe I am generalising a bit, but many Indians who have an Usha Vance or three immersed in Americana may agree with me.
The book’s premise is that “parental immaturity has negative ripple effects for children that can last into adulthood.” I do not disagree that parents can be immature; we are all human, after all, and no one gives you a user’s manual when the first baby arrives. But in India, immaturity is the default position—be it man or woman. A man is spoilt by his mother from the moment he is born. Part of it has probably to do with a woman trapped in a hostile home where her husband provides no intimacy (this…
