Parents-to-be fear they won’t have time for children

The findings revealed that except Bangalore,where 59 per cent couples have a preference for the gender of their child,over 70 per cent couples in the other cities are comfortable with a boy or girl child.

Counsellor and psychotherapist Parul Khona says couples these days have their own apprehensions about parenting. She had met four couples on such issues in the past two months. “The generation is self-oriented; most of them do not want to make any kind of adjustment or sacrifice,even for a child. The whole concept of parenting has changed a lot; you need a lot of money to bring up a child as everything has become expensive.”

Khona says she advises her clients to go for a child only if they are completely prepared for it. “Once you have a child and you do not have time for him/her,it will lead to a different set of issues. On an average,I see 12-15 cases of parent-children issues.”

Cryo-Save India chief executive Rajesh Sharma says the survey was an attempt to understand the fears and aspirations of new-age parents in India with whom the company has been trying to build awareness on stem cell banking. “Many couples are anxious about the challenges of raising children in today’s demanding world. Our parents had very few choices when we were growing up. Today,technology has thrown open new possibilities. But ironically,while young people are leveraging technology to improve various aspects of their lives,they seem woefully ill-informed on emerging technologies in healthcare. Sadly,there are very few who even know about it,in spite of having so much information at their disposal. This raises pressing questions on how seriously young couples see healthcare for their children.”

However,55 per cent expectant parents in Pune claimed to know of new age healthcare possibilities such as genetic testing or stem cell banking.

What it said

Over 60% couples in Kolkata,Pune and Mumbai want a single child; over 45% in Delhi and Chennai prefer two kids; surprisingly,56% in Bangalore want more than two kids.

Delhi and Kolkata couples prefer a bank account as the first investment for their child; those in Mumbai and Chennai want to invest in jewellery; 44% in Pune prefer to invest in insurance. Around 80% couples in the surveyed cities were against adoption.