Sunday, July 20, 2008

What can I do as a son to improve the relationship between my mother and father?

As a child, there is a limited amount of effort I can put into improving the relationship between my parents as they need to work things out themselves. In this age of realism, married couples are unable to maintain their relationship by just love. The things that most people are concerned about are financial distresses, as inflation and recessions kick in, parents worry about how to pay the bill, how to pay school fees, how to get a new job, et cetera. As a result, parents have less time to spend with their kids, being more concerned about their material needs than their psychological requirements. The children are distanced from their parents, and there is a huge gap between them that keeps getting bigger, filling up with all the things they do not want to tell each other. Thus the child has no way to help the parents, and this is not getting any easier as parents treat their youngsters as ignorant children who has no notion of what makes a marriage work.
What a child should do is to work hard in school and stay away from harmful things, not letting his parents worry about him and focus on themselves for the moment. Many parents do not have time to care about their child and their financial problems at the same time, and gets frustrated enough to not be able to do both. As we are already teenagers in secondary schools, we have the ability to organize family outings for the whole family to reconnect and relax. It need not be an expensive dinner at a hotel, but maybe a picnic at the beach. As a child, or teenager, our job is to study hard and not let our parents worry about us, instead of making money. That is the responsibility of our parents and we should make it easier for them.
Many families are also split up as one of the parents is no longer loyal to the family and the classic tale of infidelity plays out. This is not only the disloyal parent’s fault, but also the rest of the family’s fault as they could not make him (let’s assume it’s the father) feel wanted at home and thus leaves his unwelcoming home. Just married couples have children as they feel that children bring joy to the family, and this is how it should be. When your father or mother comes home, greet them with open arms and a big smile, comfort them if they are unhappy, and most importantly, respect their opinions. Parents will feel that they are wanted in the house and a sense of belonging to the family.
These are just some basic ways to keep a family closely knitted together, as each family is different from another; it is foolish to say that there is a universal equation of a happy family. What all families need, is trust between its members, and the willingness to help each other.

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