Parenting challenges dog families of Gulf workers

JEDDAH: Low incomes, a diffident visa status and a lack of higher education facilities in Gulf countries are forcing many gulf-based NRIs to keep their families back home in India, but it bothers them a lot as their children keep growing.
The vast majority of working class lives alone here in the Gulf countries and leave their families back home in India where wives or ageing parents run the home - parenting youngsters pose a prime challenge for them.
It is often difficult for mothers to supervise the education of high-school-going children and fathers are often aware of the limitations of mothers looking after teenaged sons, thereby posing a challenge. Teen boys deprived of a father's presence are often prone to social and educational ills.
The mere remittance of money back home isn't sufficient to bind the family together, as was demonstrated by the recent tragic death of a 17-year-old boy in Hyderabad whose father was based out of the Gulf. It was only the tip of the iceberg and reflected a larger and all-pervasive issue.
"Boys in higher classes are adversely affected by the absence of their fathers. It impacts their personality and social behaviour, not just academics," said Suresh Bharti, a social activist. He said such children receive more pocket money which generates more bad habits than good. This gets worse with the fathers living in the Gulf as compared to fathers posted elsewhere in India.
Khaja Samiuddin, a Gulf worker, agrees. "I can't return home permanently for financial reasons, but that's affecting my children's education all right," says Mohammed Abrar Uddin, a father of five who lives in Riyadh along with his growing children.
Mohammed Nabil, a student of Class XII in Hyderabad was allegedly killed during a WWE-style fight by a group of teenagers who tried to project it as a road accident, according to media reports. The boy's father, Mohammed Dastagir who works in Dubai, had rushed to Hyderabad on hearing the news and, suspecting foul play, had called in the city police.
Following the complaint, the police found some video clips on social media and arrested suspects, four of them minors and exhumed Nabeel's body for post-mortem, reports said. The incident took place on May 3 but the parents were kept in the dark up to May 10th vis-à-vis the facts behind the death and were misled into believing that the boy had died in a road mishap.
Later, the probe revealed that such fights were common wherein two teens faced-off against each other in open spaces and many of the participants' fathers worked in the Gulf countries and that these WWE-style fights were known among the teens as "Arabian gang-fights".