Parents

Parents-

Parents can be alot of things to alot of people for alot of years, but one thing they should never be is expendable.

Whether you have parents or not, whether you want parents or not or whether you need parents or not, most of us have them at one point in our lives. Some for 60 years, some for 60 months and some for 60 minutes. Whether you have them now or lost them young is nothing that you can control. If you don't have them it gives you  no special 'feel sorry for me' privileges and if you do have them it gives you no 'feel sorry for me' privileges.

Parents, no matter who they are, should be treated with respect no matter how old or young they are. They raised you and took care of you and you are where you are today because they chose to have you. You may not like how they raised you or who they are today but that was their choice.  


People with older parents or ailing parents sometime run into a problem because although your parents raised you when you needed them, you now think that you can walk away and not have their needs inconvenience your life. What usually happens over and over again is that one of the children will take a brunt of the responsibility and in some cases have the person move in with them to make things more convenient. All the other children will steer clear of the situation and take the responsibility as little as possible. Once a month?? While the main caregiver slowly marks off any vacations, any weekend trips, any saturday trips, anything that would involve leaving the house because they know the rest of their family will not be willing to inconvenience themselves to help with their own mother. Day and night the main caregiver sacrifices anything they may desire because no one steps in to help. And when they do, for the very minute time they do, they chaulk that one measly day or one measly week up and hang on to that one so they can say they 'put in their time'. It should be a desire not a burden to spend time with a father or mother who will probably be dead in a year or so. Now, I don't have parents so this post may be a little biased, but I would like to believe it's not, But if they were still here they would be pushing 65 and in 10 years or whenever they needed us I believe we would all be there to equally share our time as each ones situation permitted. For those family members who do not take the time to equally share the time it takes to take care of an older father or mother, I believe there is a special type of punishment reserved for them. It is a horrible place to be to not have the time for your own father or mother when they need you most.

Seriously, if you are one of those people (and you are if you don't share equally in the care takeing of an ailing mom or dad) get a clue, really, it's YOUR responsibility to take care of your older family members. 

OR, you can just shake off the responsibility and then wonder why your kids push you to the curb with you can't cook, clean or do things for them. Your too old and no of use to us, why should we help you now?!  I mean that is how you feel about your ailing parent now, so why should they feel any different about you then?

I think I'm going to train my kids to always help the older members of the family when they need it. And I'm going to do this by deed. Because I can tell them all I want, but they learn from my actions waaaaay more than my words. 

All would be right in saying "you don't know my situation"- But what I do know is we all make time for what is important to us- 

To those who disregard their parents: "Your words to your kids about helping others is like a loud clanging bell that they tune out..... because you do not love"