From blessing to investment

By now, every Indian has noticed how social small talk has changed. Years ago, if you found yourself seated beside a stranger at a wedding or on a train, you would be hit with the curious question, “How many children do you have?” It was the social equivalent of a handshake, answered with pride or perhaps a sigh — three, maybe four, sometimes more. Fast-forward to today and the question has shrunk just like family size. Now, it’s “Which class is your child in?” or “Which school do they go to?” The answer is usually “one” or “two — elder in Grade 8, younger in Grade 3.” Three is rarer than evening power cuts in big cities.

For decades, governments have worked hard to promote family planning — posters, radio jingles, and public service announcements galore. Yet population figures always found ways to defy charts. Now, quietly, private education has stepped in as the accidental champion of small families.

Private schools never set out to control population. Their ambition was more modest: to provide “world-class” facilities, “holistic learning”, and sometimes, air-conditioned buses. But nothing shrinks family budgets faster than a school prospectus listing annual fees, sports equipment requirements, compulsory excursions, and a “miscellaneous” charge that seems to cover everything but the parents’ peace of mind. One glance at a fee circular and most parents agree — two is plenty, three is brave, and four is for millionaires.

Modern parenting, then, has become a balancing act. Children are no longer counted as blessings but as investments. Each child means another round of admissions, uniform shopping and, of course, evening coaching classes. The dinner table debate is less about college dreams and more about whether the family can afford the tuition fees. Family planning, it seems, now happens at the same table as school budget discussions.

Yet, beneath this comic shift, there is a serious story. Private schools, with their promise of quality, have become symbols of status — and barriers to opportunity. For families which can pay, the doors to the best education swing open. For many others, they remain tightly shut. The gap between children in private uniforms and those in overburdened public classrooms continues to widen.

This unintended population control brings along the old challenge of equity. When education becomes a commodity instead of a right, aspiration can turn into anxiety, and opportunity slips further away from those who need it most. Government campaigns may now find themselves focusing not on how many children a family has, but on whether every child, whoever they are, can access good education.

So perhaps the new face of population control is not the family welfare clinic — it’s the school corridor. India’s report cards and admission forms are silently shaping the size of our families and the future of society. What no slogan or poster could really achieve, private school fees did — one receipt at a time.

gksharmaps@gmail.com