Ang mana…

Rhona Canoy

SO… An acquaintance of mine is undergoing the travails of fighting over inherited property. It is sadly commonplace and has always made me wonder if there could be a particular point of view that nurtures this circumstance.

How are we raised to have such an immense feeling of entitlement? Because, in all honesty, that’s what it is. We feel we are entitled to whatever our parents have worked so hard for. In the worst cases, while they are still alive.

Let’s try to see it from the parents’ side of things. As parents, we have been taught to work hard to provide a good life for our family. Usually defined by “not going through what we went through.” But how bad is that, really? All our difficulties, challenges and whatever else we had to overcome were elemental in shaping us into who we are today. As parents, our childhood helped us to become hard-working (in most cases), selfless (in most cases), caring (in most cases) people. So why are we so eager to deprive our children of this selfsame training?

As parents, we shower our children with all the material excesses in our capabilities. Things which cost thousands of pesos each–electronic gadgets and cell phones, athletic gear, fashion accessories. Do we equate this with how much we love them? Dear God, no! We provide them with “slaves” in order to protect them from doing chores and other horrible menial duties. Do we let them make their own beds and clean their own bathrooms so they learn to be more responsible? Dear God, no!

As parents, we tell them that everything we do and all that we work for is so that they don’t have to do anything for themselves. “We’re growing this business for our children.” “We’re buying this property for our children.” “We’re buying this car so our children don’t have to walk.” “We’re killing ourselves so our children can be lazy-assed, feeling-entitled, the-world-owes-me-everything kind of people.”

Parents, wake up! We don’t owe our children anything except love and care. And that expresses itself in ways beyond the material. We owe our children the preparation need to live an independent life when they grow up–an education, values, self-confidence and self-discipline, a solid work ethic, respectfulness, things money cannot buy.

Now, let’s see it from the children’s point of view. As children, we heard often enough how hard our parents are working for our benefit. We have been recipients of their boundless gifts (which we probably demanded from them in the worst possible way) without regard of cost. Actually with a lot of regard for cost. The more expensive, the better. So we see them as providers of the easy life which we are actually undeserving to live. We see their toil and labor as the requirement to ensure that when our parents go, we are well provided for (although that is not their life purpose).

Children, wake up! We owe our parents respect, appreciation, gratitude for all that they do. And if for some reason they feel that they want to sell everything they own to fulfill their bucket list, we should be supportive and happy for them. If, when they depart from this earth, they leave us a goodbye gift we should be humbled by their thoughtfulness.

I told my daughter that all she was going to inherit from me was my fully-automatic washing machine. I knew she would be appreciative. Growing up handwashing clothes made sure of that!