I read somewhere that a person starts appreciating their parents only in their late twenties, and for some smart, emotionally intelligent beings, it is from their early twenties. I don’t think I have met teenagers who have totally appreciated their parents.
Generally, whatever is with us for the longest time and without changing dramatically, we tend to take for granted, like the sun rising in the east, the fact that we can breathe, that our parents are always there which means, I don’t have to spend every waking hour with them.
Only when we see our world shatter and when the sun doesn’t rise, or you can’t breathe because you are ill, or one morning you realise that someone you saw last night isn’t there this morning, only then we know the value of everything and the price we pay for not valuing them.
Appreciate while you still can
One day I had a major hankering for Chinese food, so I messaged my close friend who I knew loved it as much as I and would never say no to having some. She didn’t message back, which in my 20 years of knowing her was strange. I got a call the next day saying that her mother had had a fracture a few weeks ago, and a clot had developed. The clot had broken with some pieces reaching her lungs and her mom needed an operation. I ran to the hospital immediately, only to learn that her mom, a few hours later, was declared brain dead and couple of hours after that died. I ran back home to my parents.
I have always loved spending time with my friends, but after that incident, I always chose my parents, if they had plans that overlapped with my friends’ plans. Friends may be forever, but parents not so much forever, yet the pain of losing them is forever.
The irony of the story of appreciation is that by the time we do realise how wonderful and awesome they are, some of us have either lost one or both of them. For those of us who do have one or both of them around, should deem ourselves extremely lucky, because in this big wide world we finally realise that they have been on our side all along.
Strengthening bonds with our parents can’t happen over one breakfast one fine Saturday morning. It takes time and effort mostly on our part, because if we are reading this article, we need to obviously make more of an effort.
Exercise: Exercise is a fantastic way to spend time with parents. No I don’t mean signing them up for a Zumba class, because you might just end up signing huge hospital bills. I meant take them out for a walk in the park or walk on the road, even if you are at different paces, don’t lose sight of each other. The other exercise which you should do with your mother is Pilates (if you can convince your dad, good job you!!). Pilates is a fantastic form of exercise, you need no equipment (well except YouTube), all ages and all levels of fitness can do it and you can see the result in a matter of days. Research has also shown that people who exercise together, get fitter and healthier and maintain a healthy lifestyle for longer. Exercise produces this hormone called endorphins and endorphins makes you happy, and by the end of it there are three happy people in your house. What more could you ask for?
Go-karting: This one is for the dads, trust me they have a fantastic time. I don’t think I have ever met a man who went go-karting and came back with a frown. If your dad is competitive and it’s 8:30 in the night, please lose the race so that you guys can go home. (In case you don’t know what go-karting is, it is where individuals are put in little cars and they zoom around a given track)
Movies/TV: This part is tricky, because there is so much entertainment that focuses on what young people like, though we might appreciate it, our parents probably won’t. So what you could do is find good, fun, family, wholesome entertainment to enjoy (and no I don’t mean the Little Mermaid or Lion King).There are many fun sitcoms (The Cosby show, Home Improvement, Modern Family), and good movies (please check out the trailer before showing it to them). Nothing like comedy to keep the endorphin-filled family going.
You can also watch the news with them and ask them about their opinion about a new topic. People loved to be asked their opinion. So go ahead make your parents the 9th and 10th panellist on the news channel and add to the ruckus.
Food: Nothing transcends boundaries like food does. Even if you are just standing in the kitchen as the self-appointed taster, the experience is something else. You learn how to cook (no guarantee of how it will turn out when you actually do it, only that you learn the process). Some of the best conversations that you will ever have with your parents is over the cooking stove.
Take your parents out to try new cuisines, if your parents have always tilted towards only having Indian food, a safe bet is to get them to try Mexican—start out with the nachos and then move to Fajitas. If all goes well, then continue. If they like spicy and coconuty flavours, then Thai and Vietnamese food would be better. If they can tolerate cheese, only then and then only, let them into the Italian food world. And if they are feeling radical, then Japanese. Treat your parents to all the ‘in’ foods and all the ‘in’ joints! You might be the only one in the gastro-pub with parents, but who cares; you are giving them yummy food.
Flowers: There is some connection between crossing a certain age and flowers, or some people and flowers. Take your parent/s to the nursery and buy them those pretty flowers and buy them those pretty pots with a pretty watering can. Even holding the pot while they are painting is a good time to bond. Trust me, it floors them, and keeps them sufficiently occupied every morning. Of course these pretty flowers will come back as a pain in the neck, because all future decisions of travel will then depend on “Who will take care of the flowers!”
Music: It is the only medium that transcends time, age and any other boundary you can think of. Ask your parents what music they listened to when they were young and then go online and buy it. The great part about this is that you suddenly get exposed to this world of wonderful music with deep lyrics and real emotions. It is an eye opener. (On a personal note, it was my mother who introduced me to the music of Pink Floyd and Eagles when I was 15 years old).
Once you have got them a set of songs, you make them independent. You can then spend time teaching them how to search and download the songs that they like. Warning that this may require extra patience, especially if they call you at work and ask, “ok now where did the song go, I can’t find the song.”
This of course leads to my last suggestion which is to teach them technology. Show them fun apps (other than Candy Crush and Cooking Dash); it enthrals them and they become worse than kids. Of course this means that you occasionally will have to check up on the gadget otherwise one day you will get atleast 10 panic calls that the gadget has crashed, they don’t know what to do and are very upset.
Remember your school days, the only thing you remember is the fun you had, the teachers you made fun of, the standing on the bench and standing outside the class and eating out of everybody else’s lunch box. You don’t remember any physics and geography lesson. Well your work right now is like physics and geography, you need to do it to get the salary, but looking back the only times you really remember are the times you stood with your dad in the kitchen making chicken curry, standing in the grocery stores holding up the basket while your mother adds “only one more item” to the basket every minute. The decisions at the nursery about which flowers will have the highest life expectancy in your house and the panic calls about not being able to access a certain app.
We will have these cheerleaders only for a little more time. So why not make sure we fill up that time with loads of awesome memories.
However cool the new interface of the social networking app is or how real-time the updates are coming in, nothing is as cool as the ‘real time’ with your parents, the only people in the world who will be on your side till their last breath.
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