FAMILY IS NOT A FINAL GROUND — IT'S A STARTING POINT
- Madhukar Dama
- 11 hours ago
- 6 min read
At birth, a child arrives in a family — a nest built by others, out of their own needs, dreams, traumas, and survival strategies.
But this nest is not the sky.
It is only the first ledge.
A place to grow enough feathers to one day leap, fly, and build anew.
To mistake the family for the child’s permanent ground is to clip its wings before it has even learned to trust the air.
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1. THE PURPOSE OF FAMILY: A STAGING AREA, NOT A PRISON
Protection: The family provides physical survival at a helpless stage.
Orientation: It gives the child a basic sense of self and others.
Training: It offers (or should offer) emotional, mental, and social training wheels.
But beyond this — it must allow and celebrate the child's departure.
A tree does not grow to remain inside the seed shell.
An eagle does not stay inside the egg.
A river does not stay in its spring.
The family is a necessary beginning,
not an eternal destination.
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2. WHAT HAPPENS WHEN FAMILIES FORGET THIS?
When families forget that their role is temporary and sacred, many unhealthy patterns emerge:
Possessiveness: "You owe us your life because we gave you birth."
Guilt bondage: "You are selfish if you think about your own happiness."
Forced conformity: "You must marry, work, worship, live as we want."
Stunted individuality: Adults trapped like children, unable to think, feel, or live independently.
Generational chains: Unhealed trauma and dysfunction passed endlessly.
When the family demands permanence,
it kills the life it was meant to protect.
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3. NATURE’S LESSONS: EXAMPLES FROM THE NATURAL WORLD
Birds:
Once young birds grow strong enough, the mother literally pushes them out of the nest — not out of cruelty, but because staying would mean decay.
Tigers and Lions:
Mothers teach the cubs survival skills, then let them go.
Some cubs roam thousands of miles to find new territories — they must leave.
Trees:
Seeds fall far from the parent tree.
If they fall too close, both parent and child suffer — competing for light, water, soil.
Humans once knew this instinctively in tribes and villages:
Adolescents moved between clans.
Young adults built their own huts, livelihoods, and families without guilt.
Emotional independence was encouraged as natural maturation.
Today, it is often suppressed under emotional blackmail disguised as "culture."
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4. HOW "FAMILY" BECAME A CULTURAL PRISON
Modern societies, particularly in places like India, East Asia, and parts of the Middle East, have hardened family into:
A unit of economic security (old age plans).
A unit of social status (marriage alliances, career bragging).
A unit of emotional hostage-taking ("good children" vs. "selfish children").
Children are taught not to ask,
"What is my truth?"
but to ask,
"What will my parents think?"
This destroys both the child’s soul and the family’s original sacredness.
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5. HEALTHY FAMILY UNDERSTANDING: RELEASE, NOT RETENTION
The most sacred families operate under a quiet promise:
We will love you unconditionally.
We will train you for flight, not dependence.
We will celebrate your leaving as the proof that we have done our duty.
They do not bind.
They do not guilt.
They do not control.
They trust Life itself to parent the child further — beyond their limited reach.
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6. THE CHILD’S JOURNEY: BUILDING A NEW GROUND
When a child grows, the call is inward:
To build one’s own values.
To create new rituals, homes, work, love, friendships.
To become an independent fountain,
not a river forever chained to its spring.
Sometimes the child adopts strangers as family,
sometimes reinvents kinship through friendships, partnerships, communities that feel alive.
This is not betrayal of the original family.
It is the fulfillment of life's deeper design.
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7. A BRIEF HEALING REFLECTION
If you are a parent reading this —
Do not demand loyalty over growth.
Do not ask a soul to shrink for your comfort.
If you are a child reading this —
Your duty is not to stay.
Your duty is to grow, to live, and to love fully.
Leaving is not always rebellion.
It is sometimes the highest form of honoring the gift of life itself.
—
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HEALING DIALOGUE: "THE FAMILY IS A STARTING POINT, NOT A CAGE"
(The mud house is cool and silent. The smell of earth and woodsmoke lingers. Anaya sits on the floor before Madhukar, her eyes clouded with guilt.)
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Anaya:
I feel cruel, Madhukar.
My parents gave me everything. And yet... I want to leave.
I want to live differently. Not their life. Mine.
(Voice breaking)
Is this betrayal?
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Madhukar:
(Barefoot, sitting cross-legged, stirring some neem leaves in a pot)
When a bird leaves the nest, do you call it betrayal?
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Anaya:
No... but they are not birds.
They are people who sacrificed so much for me.
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Madhukar:
(Looking up, gentle)
And was that sacrifice a contract?
Did they raise you to bind you?
Or did they raise you because Life demanded it, and they obeyed?
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Anaya:
(Whispering)
I don't know anymore.
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Madhukar:
Listen carefully, child.
Love that demands shrinking is not love.
It is fear dressed as duty.
(He pours the neem water into a bowl, setting it before her.)
Drink. Bitter things cleanse the blood, as bitter truths cleanse the soul.
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Anaya:
(Takes a sip, wincing)
It's so bitter.
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Madhukar:
(Smiling)
Freedom always tastes bitter first.
But without it, you rot in sweetness.
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Anaya:
(Silent for a while)
But what about gratitude?
Shouldn’t I repay them somehow?
They say: "We gave you life. Don't abandon us."
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Madhukar:
Gratitude does not mean paralysis, Anaya.
Real gratitude means you live fully.
You become fertile.
You create new rivers, new forests, new winds.
Not sit by their side as a broken branch.
(Pauses)
Their mistake is this:
They think love means keeping you close.
But true love says:
"I trust Life to take you where I cannot."
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Anaya:
(Looking at her hands)
What if they are angry? Hurt? Alone?
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Madhukar:
They are adults.
They too are children of Life.
Their loneliness is not your debt to pay.
(He leans forward.)
You cannot die daily to keep others comfortable.
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Anaya:
(A tear falls)
So I can go?
Without shame?
Without hating them?
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Madhukar:
Go.
Bless them.
Thank them.
Leave with an open heart — not in anger, not in guilt.
Their role in your life was to prepare you to outgrow them.
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Anaya:
(Taking a deep breath)
But where will I go?
How will I build?
It feels so empty.
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Madhukar:
(Points to the forest beyond the mud house)
Did that tree know exactly where it would grow when the seed fell?
No.
It just trusted the soil, the sun, the rain.
(Softer now)
You don't need to know everything, Anaya.
You only need to know that staying where you don't belong is the slowest death.
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Anaya:
(Smiling through tears)
Will it hurt less someday?
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Madhukar:
Only when you stop believing you are abandoning them.
You are simply completing the sacred circle:
Born into one family,
Growing into yourself,
Birthing new life through freedom.
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(They sit in silence. A breeze stirs the neem leaves. Somewhere, a koel calls.
The earth, the sky, and the broken heart inside Anaya all breathe together.)
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CLOSING SUMMARY QUOTE FROM MADHUKAR:
> "A family that demands you remain small is a womb that forgot to give birth.
Be born fully. Even if you have to cut the cord yourself."
—
THE CORD CUTTER
they told you:
"stay small,"
"stay safe,"
"stay where we can see you,"
but you were already
growing teeth.
they told you:
"we gave you life,"
as if life was a loan
and you were late on payment.
they packed your bags
with guilt,
stitched shame into your shirts,
hid fear inside your pockets.
you wore it all for years,
walking crooked,
head bent like a dog
leashed to a dying tree.
but one evening,
the sky tore open —
a slant of gold,
a crow screaming from nowhere,
your lungs filling with someone else's rain —
and you knew:
you were dying where you stood.
so you unlaced the guilt,
peeled off the shame,
emptied the pockets of fear,
and walked.
no letter.
no speech.
no courtroom drama.
just a quiet funeral
for a self that never really fit.
they will call you cruel.
they will call you lost.
they will say you killed them.
but you will know:
they were already dying.
they just wanted company.
---
some cords
you must cut yourself.
some births
you must give yourself.
some families
you must leave behind
to find the family
still waiting in your bones.
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QUICK QUOTE FROM THE POEM:
"Some cords you must cut yourself. Some births you must give yourself."
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