Don’t let anyone else tell your story

Did you knowrdquo said my friend Gulan ldquothat it is now considered rude among todayrsquos younger generation to ask a person where they are fromrdquoI didnrsquot know but the question was familiar from conversations in trains park benches and waiting rooms For the average Indian meeting two bits of information a personrsquos lsquonative placersquo and surname sum up everything about the stranger The surnamemdashSharma Iyer Tripathi Srivastavamdashgives away the caste while the place reveals the cultureldquoPerhaps they donrsquot want to be mischaracterised based just on origin and namerdquo I saidBut I knew this could not be true We already give away terrifying amounts of personal information to social media Moreover travel and crosscultural marriages have blurred most caste and cultural distinctionsldquoEveryone has become privacy consciousrdquo Gulan said ldquoYou never know when yoursquoll accidentally say something harmless and offend someonerdquoThat experience will be familiar to many boomer parents with children in their 20sAnik not his real name was a devoted boomer father who had sworn that he would be a better parent to his child than his father But with the grind of daily life and work he did not think he had passed on all his accumulated insights and wisdom about work love friendship living and dying to his son when he left to study physics at UCLADeciding to have those conversations on his blog instead he crafted a series of posts as letters to his son advising him with wit and sagacity he thought on dealing with loneliness a new culture exploring a new city dealing with illness eating well and so onOne post warning his boy about the homesickness and loneliness and the need to find inner resources for coping with them became a viral hitmdashbut only among other emptynesters with children in university He had unwittingly echoed the sentiments of hundreds of parents wanting to hug and reassure the child they missed so muchNothing prepared Anik for his sonrsquos explosive reaction when he shared the viral post with him ldquoYoursquove exposed merdquo he cried ldquoEveryone knows about me now and yoursquove decided what they should know I look like a foolrdquo The young man angrily asked his father to cease and desist with the wellmeaning postsMost excruciating for Anik was learning that his son had not felt homesick or lonely He had naively assumed the sonrsquos departure from the nest would be like his ownAnother parentrsquos very clever daughter quit school finding the Indian curriculum ldquomindlessrdquo and spent several years tiddling with her computer at home When the worried parents investigated they discovered she had built a thriving YouTube channel with nearly half a million subscribers addicted to her productmdashold movie mashups where she stitched together clips from old movies into brand new storiesWhen the gobsmacked parents told her how proud they were of her unexpected talent she had a furious meltdown accusing them of not respecting her privacyA study by the Center for Generational Kinetics of over 1200 people aged 1459 explored the mindset preferences and expectations of differences in the way privacy and safety are perceived by four generationsmdashBaby Boomers Generation X Millennials and Generation Z Not surprisingly Gen Zers those born after 1996 and who grew up using the Internet had the most nuanced understanding of privacyYour Gen Z child ensures privacy by cutting their life into pieces and deciding which one they will present to whom Their TikTok persona will not be like their Insta one Authenticity is more important than accuracy Most choose avatars to disable facial recognitionThey understand that life is a stage where you will connect not only with friends but also with prying parents employers corporations and the government None of them need to know everything so Gen Z ensures its safety and privacy by concealing and compartmentalising creating multiple accounts and personas for disparate audiencesYour children are the most secretive and privacyconscious generation ever bornI have always told other peoplersquos stories sometimes making a guest appearance in them The pen was mine so I was the narrator the arbiter of accuracy and what was shareableWe often forget that our memories are fickle and deceptive Our stories are always reconstructions evolving with time and we only tell them as best as we recall embellished with what might or should have been My generation was promiscuous with other peoplersquos stories and did not respect anyonersquos privacy but we also did not have a Facebook to amplify our misdeedsAll that has changedOur Gen Z children make us aware that parents do not have the automatic right to ask for or be told their childrenrsquos stories It is theirs to create and tell to the audiences they choose Parents must go through the pain of realising that they are only one of many compartments in their childrsquos life They will be shown whatever is appropriateSometimes that may not include the native placeYou can reach C Y Gopinath at cygopigmailcomSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper