The theme of the relationship between parents and children becomes prominent, as Gogol grows old enough to interact with his parents as a child. While Ashima is pregnant with Sonia, Gogol and Ashoke eat dinner alone together and Ashoke scolds Gogol for playing with his food. He says, "At your age I ate tin," to draw attention to how grateful Gogol should be for having the food to eat. The relationship between Ashima and Ashoke and their own parents is also mentioned when they find out that their parents have died; Ashoke's parents both die of cancer, and Ashima's mother dies of kidney disease. They learn about these deaths by phone calls.
As Ashima addresses Christmas cards in Chapter 7, she is wistful that Sonia and Gogol did not come home to celebrate Thanksgiving with her. Their need for independence is contrary to the need she felt at their age to be near her family. Gogol begins to feel tender toward his father after his death, when his attitude toward him while he was alive was generally impatient. As Gogol drives Ashoke's rental car to the rental office of his apartment building, he wonders if a man outside the building mistakes him for his father. The thought is comforting to him. He now understands the guilt and uselessness his parents had felt when their own parents had passed away across the world, in Calcutta.
The relationships between parents and children are introduced in Chapter 8 with regard to Moushumi and her parents, who are Bengali like the Gangulis. Because she is a woman, they had been presenting her with Bengali suitors throughout her teenage years, none of whom she was interested in. This experience alienated her from her parents, since she did not want to take their advice about whom she should marry, and since she resented them for trying to control her destiny in that way.
The relationship between parents and children is prominent as a theme in Chapter 12. Gogol considers what it took for his parents to live in the United States, so far from their own parents, and how he has always remained close to home; they bore it "with a stamina he fears he does not possess himself." He does not think he can bear being so far away from his mother for so long.
