Responsibility For Your Parents

Assalamualaikum.....

I was listening to the morning talk in the Lite.fm radio channel one morning. At my age, I have switched to this kind of radio station lately. They play the soothing music that I need. Life can be so stressful, so this kind of soothing music does help sometimes. And they have issues and topics which are soo related with our life. Just like that morning when they have this one regular doctor who will be there sharing a medical topic with the listeners. The topic varies from physical medical problem, psychology, health and several others. But on Wednesdays, they have a professional Psychologist named Dr. Paul J.

That morning's topic caught my attention. This one particular listener, a lady called the morning show. She said, she has 3 siblings and they are left with one parent only now. The mother. Of course the mother is now at that old age and she needs a lot of things to be done with help from the children. The mother would always call this lady to send her to the hospital for check-up, to send her to other relatives house, to run her errands and the list goes on. She said she doesn't mind to do all that for her mother, but sometimes it clashes with her own schedule. She got things to do as well and she has her own life for her to run too.

The thing is, whenever she tries to get help from the other siblings, they always give reasons. They have this and that...you name it all. Thus, the mother keeps on depending on her only. She really feels that this is unfair because she has other siblings in which supposed to share the responsibilities as well. So she asked the doctor. What should be the solution?

The doctor got attracted with this topic. Let me try to simplified his advises :

- Keep on nagging at the siblings. Make it frequent and highlight it to them that she needs their help too. Voice out loudly so that the message really planted in the siblings head mind.
- Don't stop talking to the ignorance siblings. Communication is very important.
- IF...all of the above failed to attract their attention, she needs to make it public. She has done all the private probability solutions and that didn't work, she needs to expand the highlights. Tell the other relatives and elders. Of course they will be risks and consequences, but that should be anticipated. This way, you put the social pressure around the ignorance siblings. Let them feel it and let them change the hard way.

Oh, I managed to listen until that part only and couldn't wait to the end of discussions. But I think that is some valuable professional advice that I should share with other people. This case happens everyday in our life. Be it Malays, Chinese, Indians or whatever. We are all human beings and human beings tend to make mistake and tend to be selfish.

As Muslims, taking care of parents is an obligation. It is a must and you are in deep sinful situation if you ignore your parents. It is not only in the circle of social, but it affected your hereafter destinations as well. But yes...again...people forgets. I think it is not a disability to remember, but it is their ability to ignore the facts.

But I wonder....
If they have strong willpower to ignore the norm and facts, why it is so difficult for them to uphold the rights?

.