Hello, everyone.
Welcome to my blog and another wonderful edition of the Hive Learners' featured post. Growing up, when things got tough, my parents would always make huge sacrifices to ensure that all that we needed was provided; we lacked nothing, even if it meant them lacking certain things and not participating in certain activities. They ensured that our lives (my siblings and mine) were good. One day we asked our mom why they do all that they do; even when these things make them uncomfortable or push them off financial balance, they still manage to do it, and my mom's words were, "As a parent, you take care of your kids when you are young, so that when you are old, your kids will take care of you."
To this day, those words still ring in my head, and somehow, when parents get old and retire after all the hustles and bustles to ensure they give their kids the best life, the same kids take them to a retirement home. I am not saying it is the wrong thing to do, but what happened to reciprocating the love that they have shown you all your life, right from when you were very little? They shaped you into what you are and made sacrifices that are beyond words, and because you are caught up in your own life, you feel a retirement home is best fitted for them?
At a retirement home they would be given good treatment and taken good care of, but whoever is taking care of them is only doing it because of the money and not because they want to, and once that money stops coming, then the good treatment ceases to exist. They would be given good treatment without any emotions attached, just straight to business, but when you do take care of your parents yourself, there are certain things you would do differently, things that a worker at a retirement home would never do for them.
For me, it is actually best we take care of our parents at home and not hand them over to a stranger; we would do it better than the stranger we are entrusting them to. If we feel our job will be a challenge, we can get a helping hand, maybe a maid or a nurse who would take care of them when we are away, and when we are back, we can take over. At their old age they do deserve all the love and care that they deprived themselves of to ensure that we amount to something; we owe them that much.
Our parents have made numerous sacrifices for us, some of these sacrifices we cannot even remember but they did all that without second thoughts and all their sacrifices summed up and brought us this far which is why it is best we take care of them ourselves and not have a stranger do it. Sometimes you get too busy with work; you can get a nurse or a maid to assist and cover for you. Everyone loves when they live with family or have family around, and that does not go away at old age, so why cut them off or feel a retirement home is best? When they are with family, they are happier and tend to live even longer.