i pay it forward

there's a discussion in the forum i'm subscribed of about giving financial support to our parents as one member shared her problem to the group, which i no longer want to divulge, and received a quite substantial amount of replies and/or advices.

it struck a chord on me and made me think deeper on how should someone, especially a married person, should deal with this kind of concern. i know the bible already told us how and it's reminded to us in our wedding. but because we're only mortals and we either forget or ignore, that's why time comes when we feel we're clueless on what to do.

when i was still single i was obliged to give a part of my salary to help my parents afford our monthly expenses, especially when my ate settled down and stopped giving her contribution, which i understood. but when it's my time to settle down, my financial support also stopped. (though i was thankful that my parents small business which i partly funded was already flourishing and they no longer need my help) because for one, i had to divert my income to the family which i'll be raising with jude. except for car and some appliances which were gifted to us, jude and i had to buy and invest in a lot of things. then babies came along and we need to fed, clothe, and entertain them; hence, more money is needed. i left the workforce and it's only jude who's working for us and we need to budget his income wisely to afford everything we deem necessary. luckily his income now is quite better compared to what he had been receiving from his former office that's why we can also give a little to our own families.

another reason why i also chose to prioritize our family's (jude, me, and the kids) needs over our parents is because we also need to save for our future, including our retirement. another member of the forum said, "i want to end the cycle (of passing on the obligation to the children) with us and let not my future kids suffer the same fate as us." very well said. and i share the same reason why i asked jude to save for our retirement. i know future doesn't really guarantee that our savings would be enough to pay for our food and medicines in our old age but at least, our kids saw that we prepared for this stage as no preparations mean that we really intend to rely on them.

if there's one thing that i should do now as married child is to pay the goodness of my parents, but i know they understood that it's by paying forward and that is to secure a bright future for my own kids, and that includes parents who won't be a burden during their old age. i  know that's ingratitude in our culture, but i call it 'good parenting'.