BOB, please look for a suitable boy for my daughter!” said the voice of an old friend of mine on the phone.
“So your daughter has finally decided to get married?” I asked surprised. “No, but I want her to settle down!” said the mother.
Settle down!
What a sentence; more like a death sentence than anything else; it’s like saying that whatever she’s been doing till now has been wild, uncivilized and barbaric, and now since those days have come to an end, we will have to settle her down.
Or even worse, she’s been like some sort of wild horse rushing round a horse pen and we need a good rider, a cowboy to tame her and ‘settle her down’!
I think it’s time we of the older generation realize times have changed, that women are not willing to ‘settle down’ in the conventional way and that instead of ‘settling down’ a better way of looking at things is for the parents to look for someone who will be able to join their daughter in her journey towards her goal, someone who will not have a ‘taming the horse’ attitude but a boy who will have a ‘let me build my partner’ attitude.
You need husbands today who are encouragers, who will strengthen and motivate, who will support and further the advancement of your child. It takes a confident man to be able to do this, so look for a confident fellow.
There are many who are such, who won’t feel insecure when their wife joins in a conversation, who won’t start panicking and feel small when she gets admiring glances from others, and who will feel proud of her as she rises in her own career and life: Even when she overtakes them.
Look for such men. Throw out the others. I have seen the most confident girls being brutally shaped to the fancies of an insecure man, seen laughter being replaced with haunted eyes, and intelligent conversation with silence.
And who is to blame?
The father and mother who hear the voices of their friends and relatives asking why, their daughter hasn’t settled down. Put the blame on them, fairly and squarely.
“She’s not going to settle down!” “She doesn’t want to get married?” “She does at her own time, when she meets the right man, but never to settle down, she’s already settled down!” Don’t settle your child down, search for a partner, who will honour the partnership..!
