Though there were many rib-ticking speeches and insightful evaluations during our area-level (H1) humorous speech and evaluation contest 2023, the one that touched my heart was the test speaker's speech on, 'The Nosy Relatives'. The speaker was a young college kid. She was cool and composed during the whole speech, though she was actually pouring out her frustration.
Many of us think that Toastmasters is a forum only for self-development. But this forum also helps us understand the emotions, shortcomings, happiness, enthusiasm, success and failure of people from various walks of life. From her speech, I understood that the biggest problem of today's youth is neither their 'studies' nor their 'relationships'. It is these nosy relatives who keep bothering them and invading their privacy at every given opportunity.
Well, what kind of questions are thrown on them? 'What are you studying?', 'Do you study well? What is your score?', 'Are you going to become a doctor or an engineer?', 'Something else? I don't think it will work.' If the kid has completed his/her studies then, 'Are you working in a reputed organization? Were you promoted this year?', 'When are you getting married?' The questions keep going until you have kids, and then it is about their studies, their marriage, and so on.
The speaker went ahead and shared her friend's experience where she had to give up on her career as a boxer just because of a nosy relative. She also spoke about how she locked herself into a room to avoid them and refrained from attending marriages and ceremonies. I could totally relate to this. The intrusive behavior of our uncles and aunties can leave a huge impact on a kid's social life. When the fault is on the relatives, the kid will unfortunately be labelled as the 'notorious', 'socially unfit', 'reserved', 'introvert' kid.
In the end, the important responsibility of a speaker is to convey his/her message clearly to the audience with a useful take-away that will make them a better person. Her conclusion and message in the end were loud, bold and clear.
'Don't ever be that nosy relative and bring trauma to a kid's life.'