India's Joint Family System makes for Happy Retirement

by John
(India)

We belong to India, a country in Asia. We both worked in the government sector before retirement. 58 years is retirement age in India.

When I retired, my wife had 6 more years of service. Marriage happened at the age of 29 for me with my wife and she was 23 years old.

The life was hectic before retirement for both of us. Marriage was purely a give and take affair. The up bringing of my only son, who is now 26 years old and a doctor was a tough task. When my son was born, the parents of my wife helped me a lot in up keeping the child, as my wife was out for employment.

Now both are retired, and I am 64 years old and she is 59. The life after retirement is pleasant and both help each other.

We start the day with brisk walking for a period of 45 minutes.

The joint family system practice exists in India. We live with our son who is happily married with another doctor. He is a physician and my daughter in law is a gynecologist.

We have our friend circle that is a mix of our office colleague, neighbors, schoolmates, college mates. My wife retired a senior telecom engineer and she uses her spare time as a freelance telecom consultant.

I retired as a social researcher and do consultancy for evaluation of social projects undertaken by government.

We help our son to bring up his son and daughter both are in their school. We take them for walks as well as to places of interest like tourist spots during weekends. We share our thoughts with our son, daughter in law, grand children during the weekend supper's. We give company to our grand children in the evenings until my son and daughter in law are back from their medical practice. We help our grand children to finish their home works and tell them bedtime stories and put them to sleep.

We also help my son and granddaughter in their busy schedule, to plan their personal finance like savings and investment. I use my acumen and browse the net to find new investment avenue in share market.

So far, our relationship as well as relations ship with our children and grand children going fine and the Indian values, ethos and belief in God have helped us to retain our family binding.