IN the wake of the recent murder in Britain of a 17-year-old girl by her parents in the name of honour, an inside war of mind and heart of many parents who are victim of cross-cultural moral values, has been revealed.

The feelings which triggered this malicious act of theirs is no more different from many of the parents living abroad. But the question remains about the reasons which evoke these feelings.

We are having a hard time to mark a boundary between dos and don’ts of our cultural values. This marking of boundary becomes even tougher in a country where cultural and religious values contradict with ours.

We tend to follow the same strict definition of our cultural values as of our native country which, I think, is the first step towards a wrong direction. Their children find it hard to adopt such strict cultural values as lead them to become hippy.

Many friends of mine complain about their parents enjoying life when they were young and then when it was the children’s turn, their parents become so narrow-minded that they don’t even allow them to meet their friends.

My father told me once that when the Indian movie, ‘Mughal-i-Azam’ first hit Pakistani cinemas, he went nearly 1,000km to watch this movie.

But then he doesn’t give me permission to watch a movie. That is just not fair.

We are so obsessed with the thought of what our relatives and friends would think about us that we forget what is good and what is not for ourselves and our family.

We just worry to make others please and sacrifice our pleasure and peace over theirs. We spend most of our life fearing what others would think about us.

Parents should try to let their children learn their own lessons. Parents who have migrated from their native country should try to understand that it was way easier for them to adhere to the cultural values of their native country as compared to their child whose nativity is this current place with a complete new set of cultural values.

MUHAMMAD OWAIS SHABBIR Karachi