Are You Earning Money For Your Father-in-law & Mother-in-law?

The title asks you one question, but I’m going to ask you another 4 questions right now. Four very simple questions.

FIRST: When was your first income? • SECOND: How did you earn it? • THIRD: How did you spend it? • FOURTH: Why did you earn it?

Most of us can answer the first 3 questions easily, but when it comes to the last question, we don’t really have an answer. I mean, we do have an answer, but we are not sure about that. We all have several reasons, some earn for their own needs, some earn for their parents, some for their girlfriends, etc.

But we all forget one golden rule – “We don’t actually need to earn unless there is a NEED.” Why am I saying this? Because don’t seek for good income, seek for good knowledge.

Why Do We Earn? Why We Need Money? What’s The Point?

So many questions aren’t it? Life sometimes gives you hard times, but just ignore them or learn from them. I met my neighbor friend after a long time, and now I’m going to talk about him (sorry macha!). 😛 He is 25 years old, and he is about to get married. Now that’s a good thing. He is 25 years old, healthy, smart-looking, good-character, financially strong (I mean he is earning 40K+/month, some IT firm), and what else they need extra? I asked him about his startup, and he said, “No macha, I don’t think I can earn from it anymore, it’ll take some time I guess.” Then I curiously asked, “Who said there is no time? You are still young, and you are talented nevertheless.”

Then he said something, after that I started to cry, literally. Within few months, he will get a good position in his company and he’ll get a salary hike. So he said that he needs to work hard so that he can get a good salary and settle down. He said he has no time to work on his startup. I was like, “Dei, o**a enna da solra?” I said, “You are earning 40K per month and even your yet-to-become wife is also earning, so why don’t you rest a bit and work on your dream startup?”

Then he said his spouse’s parents are expecting a guy who earns good like it’ll be a good thing for their society and they said only with good salary a husband can treat his wife like a princess. So he is earning as much as he can before he gets married. This made me very curious. Our meet ended there, but my curiousness didn’t.

Are we earning for our Father-in-law and Mother-in-law? Most of the parents will seek a boy who earns handsomely, yes I do understand money matters, but what’s the point in earning so much and living a dead life? Normally we don’t actually earn for our parents, we earn for our own destination and experiments. Why should “Marriage” interrupt the way we live our lives, the way we live our passion? If you are earning 20,000INR per month, you should work hard, get in a good position and then seek good income. Don’t ever seek good income just because someone expects you to earn.

Here is what some people do, they find a good higher position (say Assistant Software Developer) and it is 10 times better (in terms of salary and blah blah) than his current position. But he/she forgets to think one important thing, their job position is 10 times better but is their knowledge 10 times better or at least 5 times better for that role? Why do we need that job, just for our future marriage? Just for our in-laws? Just because the society thinks, “Hey look, he is earning 70K/month, he should be a good guy.” A local businessman (who might stitch shoes), he earns 100rs per day, does that mean he is a bad guy?

Take RISK – But Do It Before You Get Married or Get Kids

Just because you work in a good IT company doesn’t mean you should work there permanently, you have a Life, and you might have a goal. If you love to start a business, go ahead, take a risk. But do them before your marriage or before you start to have kids. Because it is rare to get supportive partners (wife/husband), but if you do get one then half of your problems are already solved.

Calculate your daily expenses, analyze your needs, see your monthly income and live a good life. If you are working as a Software Engineer and you don’t have any idea about “Software”, then spare some time and find a job that interests you or the job you have knowledge in, after that quit the current job and move to that one.

You can earn for your parents, for your children, and for your grandchildren, but don’t ever think about your “in-laws” when you are earning. It’s your life, not theirs. Seek good knowledge, not good income.

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    14 Comments

      • shirish bobade

        Nicely Explained. The mass percentage of our generation would never strive for knowledge, all they need a comfort at work and a huge salary !!!

      • Christopher J

        Great post bro! Even when people search for alliance, they see the salary first. If the person is 27 and earns 30k+ they reject him/her straightaway. India will surely shine when people start evaluating knowledge by the amount of money he/she earns!

      • Payal Bansal

        Amazing thought and Amazingly explained, but as they say every coin has two faces.

        Have you ever seen what an arrange marriage is like???
        The boy’s father- My son has studied in Top class college, he has a package of 8lacs, What’s your budget for the marriage?

        Sorry for being so straight forward, but that is what happens, Groom’s salary package decides, what would be the budget of the arranged marriage, How much money would be spent and which car will be gifted, YES Gifted, they are termed as gifts and not Dowry!!!

        You said it right, the merits of a person should be seen. Neither the guy’s salary, nor the girl’s father’s property and bank balance.

        I hope after reading your post, young girls and their parents can open up their eyes, But you can not hide the other side of this coin, which every father of a Girl has to face 🙂

        • Pradeep Kumar

          Yesss, I do agree the coin has two faces buddy. I normally hate what in-laws see, they shouldn’t consider someone’s salary as a criteria for happy married life. That’s why came up with this post. Appreciate your comment as well. 🙂

        • Rajeesh Nair

          I agree with your point Payal. But I think Pradeep is talking from a general perspective. Unfortunately it relates to guys more as in India we don’t have a higher percentage of working gals. The question he asked is very clear. Why do we earn money? Its obvious and nothing wrong that a father or mother would want their daughters to be married to a Man who earns well. But then it goes to a different level when they restrict the supposed groom to be Doctors or MBAs or Government employees etc. etc. They don’t want self-employed professionals like Bloggers or new business owners.

          And my personal point of view on arrange marriages is that they are close enough to business dealings or mergers in the corporate industry.. where money is given the highest perspective.. and I don’t think money can buy anyone happiness.

      • MAYO

        Hi,
        It was very nice article (or message).

        @Payal Bansal: You can rearrange your sentences like
        “The package for my daughter is 8 lacs and in which software company is your boy working and what is his package? Has he ever been on-site?”. Indeed, this is the other side of the coin.

        Today, the game changer is bride and her family. I have seen many of friends who were rejected for not being a “software engineer”. A guy is an assistant professor in a reputed college and is earning 33k per month. But he was preferred to a software engineer.

        • Payal Bansal

          Aaaah you boys are so Biased and so is this article!!!!

          Its always the Family or I might say The Parents who change the game.

          Neither a girl wants a money earning machine, nor A Boy wants his father in law to gift him a car or a flat. Today’s youth has self respect, but Parents have their old Ideologies, and they find the MONEY thingy very very important in a marriage.

          Today, everyone wants a partner who can understand them and have a happy life.
          So this article just shows the side of a prospective groom, It does happen with every prospective bride as well from the boy’s side with all such questions, Does she know cooking, Is she working and bla bla questions

      • Saurabh Mukhekar

        Kudos to your deep and realastic thinking pradeep.Its really indeed situation for every aspiring entrepreneurs.I agree on your line ” seek for good knowledge, not good income.” But unfortunately very few people agree on it. If you have passion to do somthing amazing apart from your job then surely you can do it. Its better to find like minded life partner.Which ultimately boost your future plans.

      • Divi Fernando

        I’ll tell you why men in TamilNadu work for their Father-in-law and Mother-in-law…why they strive so hard to impress them..the answer is the damned D word – DOWRY. I bet your friend did not marry his wife for free, did he? You are talking about getting to do what you are passionate about before marriage. But in India, marriage itself is a start up of sorts. A real man would not be concerned about what he is doing with his career unless he is dependent on the girl’s side for some sort of monetary benefits. The mentality of boys in our state is to earn well so that daughters of rich fathers and mother fish for them. I do not blame them, but i blame their society that says its ok to do so and live according to a ‘plan’ that the society has sketched for everyone.

      • Naina Sharma

        As a society, we are eating too much, drinking too much, working too much and spending too much. We take more drugs for anxiety and depression than ever before. Our debt is climbing and our savings are dwindling.So we need more money to make our life comfortable…You really explain all these things very clearly…

      • Amit

        A Must read post for all guys working in MNC, working hard getting good salary but whats next? nothing, they have no idea what they are doing towards their life. Leaving all their dreams and even they don’t have time for their family members. worth reading 🙂

      • Tushar

        Really nice article Pradeep. Indian society consider getting good job and then good wife because of that job is path of success but in reality it is direct path to hell.

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