The three words I hate most: The Only Son

As the only brother after two sisters, I sort of knew that patriarchy gave birth to me. If my parents didn’t believe that a family isn’t complete without a son, I, perhaps, wouldn’t have been born. My sisters lived under a form of guilt too — of not being the son their parents desired.

With two sisters, a homemaker mother, and a father who was mostly at work, I grew up mostly around women. I guess that made it easier for me to connect with girls, and I made mostly female friends at school, too. I had male friends, but found it difficult to breathe under the pressure of being ‘manly’. I was made fun of when I cried after scoring poorly in my Class 10 prelims. After years of being called ‘pansy’ behind my back (but not out of earshot), I began to overthink every word and action for fear of seeming ‘feminine’ or ‘gay’.

I wasn’t really interested in sports either — neither playing nor watching. When I didn’t join the building boys on Sunday afternoon for cricket matches, I was subjected to: ‘Must be playing Barbie with his sisters’. Truth is I preferred the couch and channel surfing to sweating it out in Mumbai’s humidity.

As I neared graduation, the pressure really piled on. I was unknowingly preparing for the next step on society’s ladder: becoming ‘The Breadwinner’. By my early 20s, my father’s business was failing and the money had slowed to a trickle. So I pulled up my socks and took the first internship I could find. Getting to a six-figure salary as soon as possible was my only focus.

As my elder sister got married and my parents grew old, their health became a concern. My mind is constantly in five-year plan mode, as being ‘The Only Son’. Constant assurances from my sisters that we don’t live in ‘those times’ anymore, and that they would shoulder equal responsibility of our parents — emotionally and financially — hasn’t quelled my internal patriarchal monster.

It’s fuelled by the constant, apparently loving, reminder by relatives — not so much in words but the seemingly extra adulation I receive for being ‘The Only Son’. Somehow my parents were ‘blessed’ with me. And that ‘blessing’ made my sisters lesser than me, although they are equal, even better than me, in every right.

(The writer is a 27-year-old marketing professional living in Mumbai)

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