By Bob Kisiki
Some parents you know might not be as happy and content as you might imagine and the cause is not as complex as you might imagine. Have you ever considered how critical it is to develop a strong, durable relationship with your children?
It is one thing to be their parent and doing your duty towards them; it is completely BOB KISIKI PARENTING another knowing that you have worked towards cultivating such a relationship between you and them, that will ensure that no matter what happens, your children will always run to you for help or to help.
Since your children running to you for help is really the ideal — the case of a dog biting a man; we will, in this article, deal with those cases where it is you in a precarious predicament and need help; the case of the man biting a dog.
Will your children find it the easiest thing to come to your rescue, when you need it? Should they come anyway, will they help you freely and with a cheerful heart? Will they count the cost of getting out of their way to attend to you? Above all, will you feel comfortable in their (tending) hands?
A time may (I will desist from saying will) come when you may be so vulnerable, the only people at hand to help you might be your children. It could be an old-age wrought condition; it could be a lifestyle-induced ailment; it could be an accident.
Whatever it is, you do not want a scenario where, as they roll you from the ward to the radiology department, they are compiling a list of the unforgivable sins you committed against them.
It will be terrible if, as they push the bed upon which you lie; they tell themselves to calm down, because the ire of the memories they hold about the relationship they have had with this parent are not exactly rosy.
So while they will not abandon you and go away in a huff (though I am not saying it is impossible that some may do so), having to take care of you with a clouded mind is in itself a problem.
Besides the children feeling all these things and probably worse, you as a parent may also feel vulnerable and, who knows, even ashamed in the hands of a child you have not cultivated a genial filial relationship with.
Not that you think they may harm you (though, again, I am far from promising that those who may nurse such ideas and sentiments do not exist). Even the fact that sometimes having them do truly intimate things to you (cleaning you up after detailed calls of nature; feeding you; bathing you, etc) can be daunting, even where it should have been an enjoyable, intimate experience.
Away from sickness, because life is more than its more sickening incidents, as an elderly person, you want to go into the sunset of your life knowing that when you need great company, the person to call home for a cosy weekend is your child; not a fellow recluse who has nobody in their life to talk to.
The writer is a parenting counselor and teacher
