I felt that what they need is someone to listen to them. Isn't that every one needs. Thanks to Vonage, I call them up every day..literaly..and talk to them for 15-30 minutes, sometimes during lunch hour sometimes late night when kids and wifey are asleep. Talks are normal, their childhood stories, your childhood stories, etc etc. Try this and see if it helps..sounds a bit difficult and naive but worked ok for me. Over the weekend 30 minutes ritual of webcam session with entire family.
We were in Hyderabad attending our friend's daughter's marriage. Flew back last night. Same situation. My friend who was a doc in UK came back in 2004 to take care of his parents. He has three siblings, two sisters and a younger bro. All of them are abroad. My friend being the oldest one, decided to come back due to pressure from his parents. Who made this bloody rule that only the eldest son has to take care of the parents? This BS has been there in our society for too long. Are we still living in Mahabharatha or Ramayana times? As I am told, his sisters did not want to marry anyone in India, wanted someone from abroad only. Its a rat race. Brother is abroad, all others have to go abroad somehow. And the parents give the tacit support, many times pitting one against the other. I could sense the tension between my friend's wife and his parents. All the other three are refusing to take care of their parents, since my friend is the oldest. Its nothing but running away from responsibility. Even parents need to understand the entire issue.
My brother took care of my parents when I was abroad 20+ yrs. Now its my turn. Nothing special abt this and we are fine with it. This may not be the case in every family. Parents need to think ahead, say 20 or 25 yrs, what would be thir situation. Not just create a rat race among the children to go abroad. In the end cursing everyone for their plight. I know that this is a sensitive issue, but one needs to look in a pragmatic way.
KumarM
You throw a very different but highly prevalant perspective on the whole issue.
Ultimately is all boils down to money. Some people realise that after a certain period of time money is worthless as compared to relationships where as others still find that cash is king.
The more money that you have / can make, the more difficult for you to take decisions.
I also agree that there the female spouse can make life a hell as both of you may not have the same bonding to their in laws as you do to your own parents.
The quest goes on .....
Peace
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I am a Gents and not a Ladies.
I think the problem is with our society. As we age, probably we will also tend to be more introversive. My friends here in my circle hate to even touch the subject let alone discuss it. Every body wants to live in bubble...
In some thread in the past, I emphasized my post about staying occupied until one is physically ineffective, this is another subject my friends seem to ditch too often as they often dream about early retirement and living in country side. What the heck you will be doing out of 24 hours in country side, you wouldn't even get 8 hours sleep as you grow old.. more you're awake, more you're free .. the more trouble you would witness.
You can't play endless golf, vacation in tropical, social service.. you are going to need something beyond that else you would end the subject what is being discussed..
Quote:
Originally posted by KumarM
We were in Hyderabad attending our friend's daughter's marriage. Flew back last night. Same situation. My friend who was a doc in UK came back in 2004 to take care of his parents. He has three siblings, two sisters and a younger bro. All of them are abroad. My friend being the oldest one, decided to come back due to pressure from his parents. Who made this bloody rule that only the eldest son has to take care of the parents? This BS has been there in our society for too long. Are we still living in Mahabharatha or Ramayana times? As I am told, his sisters did not want to marry anyone in India, wanted someone from abroad only. Its a rat race. Brother is abroad, all others have to go abroad somehow. And the parents give the tacit support, many times pitting one against the other. I could sense the tension between my friend's wife and his parents. All the other three are refusing to take care of their parents, since my friend is the oldest. Its nothing but running away from responsibility. Even parents need to understand the entire issue.
My brother took care of my parents when I was abroad 20+ yrs. Now its my turn. Nothing special abt this and we are fine with it. This may not be the case in every family. Parents need to think ahead, say 20 or 25 yrs, what would be thir situation. Not just create a rat race among the children to go abroad. In the end cursing everyone for their plight. I know that this is a sensitive issue, but one needs to look in a pragmatic way.
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The cowards never started,
The weak died on the way,
Only the strong arrived.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yK1i9cLAMM
I guess most of us are at such a stage that taking a decision in favour of one side may significantly impact other. In other words, if we decide to take care of parents in native country then our kids who spent early years of like growing in this culture will be impacted. So the original question/post was not about whether to stay with parents or not, question is how to emotionally take care of them. Every one demands your time so exchange of kind words for few minutes a day would make their whole day cheerful. It would keep them away from thinking that they have became useless and just waiting for the eventual. Just think the time that you spend on writing the post, if you just spend that time talking to kids, parents ok wife tooo...your life will be cheerful. But remember those talks need to be casual and not like..didyou take your medicne, did you do your homework, or what food did you cook..And of course keep the idiot boxes off..there are more nowadays, TV, Laptop, IPAD, iphone, wii......
Agree, Talking and listening to parents on phone or skype is so much important. Thats what makes their day. The joy they get to hear from grandchildren on phone is immense.
Apart from regular contact , I think there are many things where we can help our parents sitting here :
- Training them on making easy call in case of emergency.
- Appointing a family doctor or a private hospital for care and interacting regularly with doctor.
- Installing alarm & security system at homes
- taking/installing safety measures against - slipping in washrooms, staircases.
- installing easy to use appliances. In last visit my wife helped my mother re arranging the kitchen so that frequently used things are easily picked up.
- home delivery of grocery (my parents never agreed to this). Only milk is home delivered.
- getting them low maintenance vehicle.
- subscription of regular magazines of their liking.
Sometime parents do not agree with you , for example few years back my parents were against installing AC (they preferred cooler and fan) but slowly I convinced them to install in one room and check. They are good with it now.
I still think writing handwritten message and sending a letter in old way once in a while will do great !! My mother loves it.
My 0.02 cents:
I belive everyone who is discussing this thread, they care about parents and I am sure they will expect same in future from their kids. Our parents are in remote country. Even if we wish, we can't help much as they would like to have. Our parents understand that and not complaining to us. They really want us to stay with them but they don't demand for it.
Think about some local kids and parents in India where they are living in same city but different home and those parent doesn't get help from their kids time to time. Our parent situation is far better than those local parents.
Another view:
Do you think our kids will follow our thoughts (discussed on this thread) to help us when we will be in same situation?
I doubt (there is always an exception) Our situation will be very bad than our parents.
Also, our retirement life will be tough here in compare of our parents in India. I heard many people says that I will go to India when retire. I belive if you can't go today, you can't retire in india in future. Even if you go to India, your kids will not visit you in India or call you often as much as you are trying to do for your parent.
Someone said above that our parent has to think about 25 years in future before sending every kids to foreign country. Same thing applies to us. We have to think about our situation when kids will be 25 years old and grown in canadian culture.
If we really want our kids to think what we are thinking for our parents, we have to bring our parents here if they prefer or go back and show our kids how we are taking care of our parents. It is possible that most of us will say that we should not be depend on kids and we should not expect anything from kids in this generation but I am sure when time comes we will expect because we won't be young forever. our requirements, thought and views keep changing with the age.
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