have you inherited fear?

Last month, my friend Meera called me in a panic.

She'd been offered a dream job in Singapore. Better pay. Better role. The opportunity she'd been working toward for five years.

But she couldn't take it.

"My mother keeps saying what if something happens to them while I'm gone. What if there's a medical emergency. What if they need me and I'm 4,000 kilometers away."

Meera is 32. Her parents are healthy, 58 and 55. They have good insurance. Her brother lives ten minutes from their house.

But she turned down the job.

When I asked if her parents actually told her not to go, she paused.

"No. They said it's my decision. But I could hear the fear in my mother's voice."

That's when I realized something.

Meera wasn't responding to a real threat. She was responding to her mother's fear. A fear her mother had carried since her own mother died suddenly when she was young, leaving the family scattered.

Meera had inherited a fear that wasn't hers.

I started researching this and found something that changed how I see every major decision I've made.

Children of anxious parents are nearly five times more likely to develop anxiety disorders compared to children whose parents don't have anxiety.

But here's what surprised me. A landmark children-of-twins study found this transmission happens largely through behavior, independent of genetics.

Your parents don't pass fear through DNA. They pass it through how they react to things, what they warn you about, which risks they tell you to avoid.

Psychologists call this "intergenerational transmission of anxiety." It happens through four channels:

First, children watch parents react fearfully and mirror that response. Second, verbal warnings create lasting beliefs. "Don't trust anyone outside family." "Money can disappear overnight." "People will judge you." Third, overprotective parenting where parents make decisions to shield children from discomfort. Fourth, families restructuring their entire lives to avoid triggering the parent's anxiety.

Research shows parental control accounts for 18% of the variance in children's anxiety levels.

That's nearly one-fifth of why anxious children become anxious. Passed down like a family recipe. Except nobody asked if we wanted it.

But why do Indian families seem to carry more of this inherited fear than others?

Because our parents lived through things we've only read about.

1991 wasn't just a date in a textbook for them. India's foreign exchange reserves crashed to 15 days of import cover. The government pledged 67 tons of gold to foreign banks for emergency loans. Jobs that seemed permanent vanished.

If your parents were adults in 1991, they watched stability become illusion.

Then there's Partition. 12-20 million people displaced. A 2023 study found that grandchildren of Partition survivors, the third generation, still score in the medium range for intergenerational trauma. As researchers noted, "Partition's pain, though mediated by time, does not dissipate easily."

The agricultural crisis added rural trauma. Since 1995, approximately 400,000 farmers have died by suicide. Entire villages carry the memory of debt destroying families.

These aren't ancient history. These are living memories that shaped how your parents think about risk, security, and what counts as a "safe" life.

The tricky part is that inherited fear doesn't announce itself.

It shows up as "common sense." As "being practical." As "just looking out for you."

My uncle never explicitly told his son not to start a business. But every dinner conversation included stories of someone's business failing. Someone losing their house. Someone whose "big ideas" led to ruin.

His son is now 35, working a job he hates, saving every rupee, terrified of risk. He thinks this is his personality. But I remember him at 22, full of startup ideas, convinced he'd change the world.

That version of him didn't die. It was slowly replaced by his father's fear of what happens when you bet on yourself and lose.

A study on Indian students found 66% felt significant parental pressure, with the pressure correlating strongly with anxiety disorders. But most students couldn't articulate where the pressure came from. It felt like air. Invisible but everywhere.

The pattern shows up in relationships too.

Only 5.8% of Indian marriages cross caste lines. The rate has barely moved since 1970.

A University of Pennsylvania study found something revealing: when women chose partners independently, inter-caste marriages happened 17% of the time. When parents were involved, it dropped below 5%.

Parents aren't enforcing caste because they consciously believe in the system. Many will tell you caste doesn't matter.

But the fear is inherited. Fear of social rejection. Fear of family disapproval. Fear that stepping outside the boundary will bring disaster. Fears their parents passed to them, which their grandparents passed before that.

"Log kya kahenge" isn't just social pressure. It's intergenerational anxiety passed down as tradition.

Here's what I've started doing differently.

When I feel resistance to a decision, I ask myself:
"Is this my fear or my parents' fear?"

Sometimes the fear is legitimate. Real risks deserve real caution.

But sometimes the fear is a response to a world that no longer exists.

My parents grew up when leaving your hometown meant losing your support system. That was true in 1985. In 2025, I can video call my mother daily from anywhere on earth.

My parents grew up when one job loss could mean years of unemployment. That was their reality. In today's gig economy, income sources can be diversified in ways they couldn't imagine.

The question isn't whether our parents' fears were valid. They usually were, for their time.

The question is whether we'll keep running 1991 software in 2025.

Research shows that high-warmth parenting can break the cycle even when control is present. Parents who explain their concerns instead of just imposing them, who express belief in their children's judgment, transmit values without transmitting anxiety.

For those of us who inherited the fear: awareness is the first step. Name it. Trace it back. Ask when it started and whether the threat it's protecting against still exists.

Meera eventually took the Singapore job. It took her three months to realize she was living someone else's fear. Her mother cried at the airport but called her a week later, proud.

The fear was real. But it wasn't Meera's to carry anymore.

Hit reply and tell me: What's one fear you've inherited that you're still carrying?

I read every email.

Until next week,
Ritesh

P.S. Our parents' fears came from real dangers. They're not wrong for having them. But we live in different times. The question is whether we're brave enough to update the operating system.