Duty Of Children To Care For Parents May End With This Generation

Situations between parents, children and grandchildren have become so tenuous, the amicable relationships suffered more or less because of financial strains. Even children that still live in family homes, find it difficult to contribute enough rent to subsidize the bills coming in. One would expect that in Africa where some of these children hardly pay rent, enough money would go to their aged parents to live adequately in their old age.

Africans are not the only ones who long for loving and caring children as they age. Today, any parent waiting for that prayer in their old age will be disappointed. These children have more responsibilities weighing them down more than they can handle, making it more difficult to take what they consider extra responsibilities of their parents. Even the care provided by some responsible governments outside Africa is not the same as that of loving children.

As parents age, there are certain extra expenses to take care of because of deteriorating health. Though older parents have reduced appetite, they must be cautious, eat special nutritious food high in fiber, fruits and vegetables to prevent more health problems. Medications and vitamins supplements are also essential with regular exercise. But with reduced income and limited social security abroad, paying rent, bills and eating well may become a balancing act.

Those parents that have spoiled their children and spent everything they had on them may end up with the greatest shock of their life if their expectation of children taking care of them fall short or are not satisfactorily met. Even worse, are children who think their parents have money after they lavish everything on them but only become stingy in their old age. The false assumptions have created enmity and bad relationships within parents, children and relatives.

Many children do not know what their parents have to go through to put food on the table; pay bills, mortgage or rent. There must be cash available each day of school for children and mothers who take care of everything else. While hard times and a bad economy may affect the fathers’ income, regular responsibilities do not stop. The family must eat, live somewhere, pay school fees despite bleak economic prospects.

Most Africans have family compounds or houses before this generation of children. Those families and children without, have moved out of their communities into cities in search of better life. This generation struggles to build their own houses as they pay rent. The additional burden of providing for their wives and children has driven them to concentrate on their immediate families while their parents’ care is ignored.

African large compounds that used to accommodate everyone in the past, no longer do. Reduced purchasing power and the high cost of new homes have made life more difficult for the new generation. Many of these children have not been able to leave home and some of those that did came back home with spouses and/or children; if the parents have homes big enough for all. Abroad, some of the children or the surviving parents may become homeless in shelters.

Many African children at home and abroad still make it a priority to send money and care for their parents; until they get married and start having their own children. The money given to parents locally or sent from abroad are spent on food since ever rising inflation and foreign currencies exchange reduce their purchasing power. Indeed, studies suggest that Africans abroad send more money home to relatives than all the foreign Investments and Aids.

Unfortunately, as foreign investments and aids come in; more foreign currencies are laundered out by looters than money coming in; leaving very little for infrastructure, social services and healthcare for elderly. It is no wonder that African countries become poorer like a leaking basket that can never hold water. Most Asian countries that used to depend on rich African countries during their famine and population control days like China, are now out of poverty seen in Africa.

This is why some ladies try as much as they can not to marry “brokeass men”. Some ladies make it a condition of marriage that the men they marry must be well-off enough to take care of their parents and in some cases, their siblings. Men wondering why they have to shoulder all the responsibilities for their immediate family may not realize that the wife is the sole provider for her parents and siblings.

On the other hand are women now taking care of their husbands and children. Arguments have broken out within the family about how much the richer spouse should provide for wife or husband parents compared to the less contributing spouse. The more the wife demands, the less for the parents of the husband. The friction caused may not be because of preference or favoritism of one parent over the other but lack of income to provide for them all.

When it gets to the stage when children and close relatives think aging parents must have accumulated a great deal of money to send their children to the best schools while ignoring the basic needs of relatives, the common notion of stinginess among children, those relatives and neighbors create an unamicable situation of envy and sometimes hate. Those in need, desperate for money may go further out of spite to perpetrate harm.

Some have hired bandits to kidnap “stingy” parents and relatives for ransom. Unrealistic expectations from struggling parents that sacrificed most of what they had to make their children comfortable may backfire and lead to dire consequences. Some parents provide what they never had for their own children with the view that childhood poverty must end with them. But sometimes, hard times provide teachable moments in order to succeed later in life.

Actually, over indulgence of children turns them into Nepo-Kids that never appreciate the luxuries provided to them because they see it as entitlement. They are never grateful for what they have and compare themselves to other spoiled children. They never see themselves as privileged or able to develop empathy for other children that have very little in the same community. They become ingrates and selfish. They lack the duty to provide for their parents.