Our Responsibilities as children.. (LOH #148)

Nowadays, some parents pass on to their kids the family responsibility after they graduate from school. As a parent, do you agree with this, or will you allow your kids to shoulder burdens that are not supposed to be theirs? As a child, is it necessary for you to pay back your parents' laborious efforts even though it means you have to sacrifice your freedom?

A year ago I would have jumped and screamed No to this question but over time I have learnt a lot of things and have been forced to unlearn some bad things.

To start with I would love to scratch out the word ‘pay’ in the question above because no matter how wealthy we are we can never pay back our parents, For starters how do you pay back people whose sexual intercourse formed you? Or people who taught you how to sit, how to take your first steps, or how to make your first words? How do you intend to do that? By throwing a few boxes of cash their way?

When we talk about our parent's efforts it shouldn’t be streamed line to only the monetary aspects as there are a lot of things that these people did for us or are still doing.

I grew up with my father constantly reminding me and my siblings that we should work hard so that someday we would be rich and be able to provide everything he needed and give him a tour around the world, basically, we were his retirement benefit, of course, we were always giddy when he said that, who wouldn’t want to spoil their parents when they get wealthy?

After I was done with college and started working that was when I knew the gravity of my father's words or better still his needs.
At first, he was understanding as he was watching me grow in the corporate world but before I knew it, my father changed, our long sweet conversations were replaced with endless lists of bills and needs that I had to take care of, it wasn’t funny as I didn’t even have enough money back then, I did the things that I could do but it was never enough for him and that was when I became angry, angry with the fact that my dad wanted me to pay him for training me, I was also angry that he wasn’t understanding so I did the little I could and kept on making promises that I couldn’t fulfill.

My perspective changed after I watched a movie, The title of the movie is Obara’m, and can be found on Netflix, The beginning of that movie struck something in me and I knew I just had to change. In the movie a young girl called Oluchi left home after giving birth out of wedlock and leaving the baby with her old sick father who had to cater for his granddaughter, there were days they had no food in the house and they lacked so many other things, this old man kept calling and calling his daughter, at least to brief her on what was going on in their lives (he and her daughter) but this girl never picked up, even when he was sick she never picked up or called back, one day he died while trying to send a text message to her that he was sick. Oluchi the young girl returned to the village to attend her father’s funeral and everybody started abusing her for not calling or showing up when her father was alive. That movie shook me and I thought about my father, I made a decision that day to constantly send him more money than I did before and to always send him before he asks.

My point here is that we can never repay our parents for all they did for us while growing up but we should do our best to look after them, they are getting old, our once vibrant parents are slowly getting weaker as the day goes by, some are already depending on people to help carry out their daily activities so the least we can do is to be supportive in ways that we can.

I don’t know if I answered the question for the contest but I want whoever is reading this to never see your parents as a burden, do the needful and all that you can but most importantly make them understand, it might not be easy trying to make them understand but do your best.

My relationship with my father changed immediately, and it’s been going well, I would rather spend a lot on him now that he is alive than do an extravagant funeral for him when he is dead.

So yes we can never pay our parents.