A reader in The STAR newspaper today drew attention to the fact that more and more young people are abandoning their aged parents and opined if it is a good idea at all to have legislation compelling the younger folks to take care of their elders, just like what Singapore has done.

Many of us are still conservative enough not to wash dirty linen in public. Again it is a matter of “face”. The thought of the shame of having to take your children to court to force them to look after you is enough to make you want to crawl into a hole and hide.

There have also been cases where the old folks are milked of their money and possessions and then abandoned to fend for themselves.

Someone also joked that parents have to be very good to their children as they will determine the kind of old folks’ homes they will end up in.

Another said that it is prudent not to give your all to your children once you have given them a sound education but to keep your money and possessions for your own use until your demise.


This brings to mind Shakespeare’s King Lear who abdicated and gave his kingdom to his two older daughters because they flattered him. After getting what they wanted, they drove him out into the wild storm and he was left to wander about in madness.

It is usually during the festive seasons when visits are made to the old folks’ homes that stories of inmates emerge whose offspring have left them there and forgotten all about them.

What is it that makes these young people abandon the parents who had cherished and nurtured them into adulthood? Abandonment means denying their existence completely.
Have the elderly parents become an inconvenience, a burden?

It is often the sick and elderly that are cast aside like expired goods. Grandparents who have outlived their usefulness, perhaps, and now sickly, have become a liability.

This is why maintaining one’s health is paramount so that in your golden years, you can still fend for yourself and enjoy your retirement with the nest egg that you still have. You can still live with dignity and command some respect.

Isn’t it a tragedy that without the wherewithal, a parent, once loved and looked up to, is now considered a nuisance and a burden to be discarded? Of what use is all the education when one can deny one’s parents? The long departed older generation used to say that the way you treat your parents will be the way your children will treat you.

I wonder how true that is. Do you?

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