Aging Parents & Bleak Retirement Days

We filipinos are family oriented. Most of the time, even if we are already married, we still choose to stay in our parent's custody.

Maybe out of respect to them or because of the dependency we have from them or vice versa. In western countries, if a child reaches the right age, he/she has a choice to leave his parent's custody and strike out on his own.

In our country, this practice is often times deemed "modern". While a child can leave his/her parent's custody once she/he strikes out on his own, there are still times that we ask for their help financially or the other way around.

Investment for the education is quite expensive, most of the parents expect their kids to "return the favor" to them after the kid has finished studying.

The sacrifices they endure to send us to universities is really admirable. Most of the time, they choose to prioritize our welfare instead of thinking for their retirement.

Thus, majority of them are presented with the worries of how they would faced their sunset days once their kids got married. With nothing left for them after decades of working hard for their kid's sake.

Resentment and Bitterness always accompany them whenever this worries for their retirement days manifest.

Although it is acceptable not to help them once we have a family of our own, we still have to think of the consequences. Karmic effect, if I may say.

They've done everything to give us good education and provide a good life for us - which some of them didn't experience in the first place from their own parents.

They say that once you become a parent, only then you will understand what your parents has gone through for you.

So, if we believe in the "mirrorring effect" of the universe, we should do our best to thank our parents for what they did for us. And even if they are not asking for it, we should be sensitive enough to offer help to them as a form of "debt of gratitude".

In this way, we are also serving as a good example to our kids (once we have our own) for them to emulate when time comes that we are on our own "sunset days".

Planning ahead of time, living a frugal life and prioritizing needs over wants would greatly help us achieve the kind of retirement we dream of.

Living a frugal life, teaches us to want and love what we already have and gives us a lesson to make do with the little that we have. It also teaches us to value our resources well.

By prioritizing needs over wants, we slowly learn how to fight the temptation of splurging on things that we don't really need.

Planning ahead of time ensures that we won't be having the hard life our parents had endure for us. Although nothing really prepares us for the unexpected; it will still served as a good "cushion" for us if ever we accidentally "bump" into the unknown.

This also lessens the burden of having to deal with a bleak retirement days.