by Teetant

Created on: August 21, 2009   Last Updated: August 22, 2009

Frankly, I am amazed that we are even having a debate on this issue. But, alas, it is true that we need one badly. Because, in a way our society has already answered this question in kind: There are far too many aging parents that do not receive the due help, support, love, and care from their children. Not caring for the elderly parents and putting them in nursing homes is so common that it is considered the norm. And those few who do care are only looked upon as exceptions, some strange saintly people. In a way, our society has already said, Absolutely Not! We don't have to care for our elderly parents. Clearly, we not only need a debate, we need a wake-up call. We need enlightenment.

Whatever may be the circumstances leading to it, a child's birth is a life changing event for the father and the mother who create the child. When the child is born, they undergo a metamorphosis. They grow up. The lovers suddenly become parents. They are cast in the roles of a dad and a mom. And whether out of natural love or social pressure in caring and providing for their children, the fact remains that most parents shower their children with the best life, luxuries, and opportunities they can afford, and only wish they themselves had when they were children. In fact, many parents go beyond, and sacrifice their own aspirations in order to provide the best for their children. They try to make their children into the idealized image of their own selves, what they wish they could or should have been. As children, most of us are the beneficiaries of such princely treatment by our parents.

Normally we are very punctual and particular in appreciating anyone doing anything for us. In a civilized society of ours, we nod at and wish strangers passing by us on the street, hold doors open even for people we do not know, and do not forget to say Thank You when people do something for us, even if as a part of their job. We don't stop and say to ourselves, this person is holding the door only because he cannot come in unless I get out of his way; or that person is being so nice to me on the phone only because this call is being monitored and recorded for her evaluation later. Why are we then so failing in appreciating what our parents did for us?

We are one of the most giving nations in the world. We donate to charities to help the needy at home and around the world. When there is a famine, earthquake, hurricane, cyclone, tsunami or any other natural disaster in the world,

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