Today morning, the old woman who works for me said she’d like to have her cup of tea earlier than usual. While I was making her a cup, she explained that she hadn’t had her customary first chai of the morning since she was coming from her daughter’s place where she had gone the previous day. That seemed rather strange to me, not the fact that she had gone to spend the night at her daughter’s, but that she left the daughter’s home without drinking her must-have first cup of chai. By the way, let me add, this is Kerala and we don’t have stupid traditions that say a parent cannot have ‘even water from a daughter’s house’. So, that could not be the reason. Puzzled, I asked her,
“Did you say you are coming from your daughter’s home?”
“Yes.”
“And she didn’t make you a cup of tea?!”
“No, they all get up late, only after 8 a.m. Since I left at 7-00, my daughter just unlocked the gate for me and went back to sleep.”
“Hmmm…”
I was indignant. I mean, if your mother came to visit you, wouldn’t you go to the trouble of making her a cup of tea before she left your home? While I was brooding over this, she added,
“My daughter wanted me to go over and spend the night with her and her daughter-in-law, as her son, that is my grandson, had to go some place for work.”
Now I was aghast.
“Let me get this straight. She called you over to give her company overnight, but she didn’t even bother to give you a cup of tea in the morning before you left?!”
“Yes. She says mothers are obliged to help children. Children don’t have any such obligations…” she sighed.
Like hell. A seventy-two year old woman is obliged to walk all the way to her fifty year old daughter’s house as requested, to be with her and her young daughter-in-law (because there was no male member in the household that night), but… the daughter is not obliged to give the mother a cup of tea?
This is not the first time I am encountering such callous attitude on the part of children towards parents, especially those parents who not only have cared for and brought them up in extremely difficult conditions, but whose assets the children as adults have squandered away, forcing them into penury, and from whom the children continue extracting the maximum benefits.
Look at this woman’s example. On the very first day that she started work for me, she told me about her family (5 children and many grandchildren, plus a couple of great grandchildren too). Curious, I asked her how old she was. ‘Seventy-two’ she had replied and my jaw literally hit the floor. ‘Will you be up to doing all the work?’ I asked her doubtfully. You see, I needed someone to do the sweeping and mopping among other things, and I was worried she’d not be up to the tasks. I myself have a bad back making me unfit for such work. She replied, “I am able to as of now,” and raising her hand heavenward, added, “I will go on for as long as God wills!”
Later that the day when the L & M returned from office I asked him if there was any law that specified upper age limit for employing people, you know like we have laws about not employing children below a certain age. He laughed and said, no, he didn’t think so. Anyway, when I thought over it, I felt the woman worked because she needed the money and what I could do was let her earn a livelihood with dignity. The five children (3 sons and 2 daughters) were prepared to give her only a roof and food. So what about the medicines she needed, the soap and oil for bath, clothes to wear? What about when she need to buy something to eat when what they cooked wasn’t easy for her to digest at her age? That’s why she needed to work, she had told me. When she requested for higher wages, the L & M and I did not hesitate even a bit to raise it.
So what was it again, about our culture? About how we don’t dump our parents in old age homes like the Westerners do? Yeah, I almost tend to agree with you there. What we do instead is keep the older people home and wring them for every last drop they are wroth, ‘utilize’ them to the maximum to baby-sit, house-sit, hospital-sit, dog-sit, cat-sit, help with the innumerable chores and on top of all this convince them how incredibly lucky they are to be able to be doing all this for you. And no cup of tea either.
Shail's Nest 
An eye opener indeed.
Sheer hypocrisy is what it is! Such a shame she cannot even get basic love and respect from her own people!
Well said, Shail. 🙂
I feel so badly that her family is not treating her well. My question is would the daughter-in-law have treated her biological mother the same way?
I wish her strength always…I think others compensate for her children’s lack of consideration…Nature has a way of always filling in the place if you let it. 🙂
Once the kids get married, the next question is, why do you need to work? (outside ie) You can stay with them no? And they will need you to look after their home/kids/dogs… etc. Sigh. Sigh. Sigh. So much for taking care.
This is something I feel VERY strongly about, having seen so many grandparents coming to school on Open House day, collecting sick wards, and what have you. The kids on theo ther hand simply do not have the sensitivity to at least care about what they feel- well how could they, when their role model parents don’t. It’s downright sickening.
hypocrisy & double standards
This is so funny that you brought this up because my mom had a huge complaint relating to this topic this past weekend! It’s evident along some of my family members. My parents have worked hard and gave what they could do to help my family in India live as comfortable as they can. They have even gave some of my cousins the opportunity to move to America and live a peaceful and established. life and raise a family here. They even paid for weddings and made sure it was blissful for them. While they are going along happily with their lives, what does our family get? Except for one cousin (think it’s cuz she’s SO close with my dad), no one bothers to call (unless it’s necessary or need for something), don’t care for us and constantly lambasts and ridicules us as we are second prize, seems that way. It seems they are taking advantage of us. Not only us, but been hearing that is happening in many Indian families now, where family members take advantage of their family working abroad and insist that they still receive money even though they have jobs and act like they don’t “have” money. What’s worse it seems they are living so much better than we are and didn’t even have to work and struggle even an inch to be in a good position and feel it’s ok to be lazy, while we have to bust our asses off, endure failure and fight to the end. It seems they get the best and we get the worst despite it’s our hard work. It’s so wrong. Also I remember hearing about how another one of my cousins who still lives in India pawns her children to her mother and in laws almost all the time while she and her husband works and does whatever. Well this resulted in my aunt having to get medically treated cuz of high stress levels and extremely high blood pressure (she lives alone since she’s a widow, so imagine being alone in your 60’s taking care of a bunch of toddlers).
That said, I give high respect to my parents who tried to make my brother and my life comfortable. It wasn’t all comfortable for my brother and I as we also had endured some hardship (in fact I’m going through it and was enduring a certain failure for the last few months) and we definitely are not perfect kids, but I am glad that I was raised in America cuz the country does teach you that you can’t have things always your way and if you want it you must work for it. If a problem arises you must find a way to resolve it and move past it, rather than mope and blame others. Guess it teaches you to have a good work ethic.
I despise the aspect of putting my parents in a nursing home. Worked as a nurse aide for sometime and IMO it’s just awful as it does feel like a prison. I do get why they have nursing homes though as many people cannot take care of their parents for some reason. I would at least hire a nurse aide come to MY home and care for my parents while my parents still can have their comforts. Yes my mom drives me up a wall alot, tends to be very narrow minded and always seems to have a negative outlook, believes in superiority complex, has pride, arrogance, is a hypocrite at times and has attitudes that many of us cannot tolerate, but to be fair there are certain aspects that she does deserve respect and she and my dad will get that.. Plus to think of it, when we are in our parents’ home they are the ones who care for us and feed us..etc. But when we have our own homes, we should be doing the same with them as they are no longer our caretakers but more like our guests 🙂
Great writeup Shail.
((Hugs)) You are doing a great job of taking care of your parents !
Her daughter is fifty and the entitlement of help from parents is still present.. The vice versa i.e. – 72 yr old mother treating a 50 yr old daughter as a child is also present.. Both are equally disgusting and unhealthy …
This is really sad – the way a daughter treats her mother !!
And I am deeply saddened by ppl who leave their parents or grandparents in old age home !!
good for you shail. May there be more of your kind.
Oh Shail, I feel pathetic reading about such shameless people like that daughter. My heart goes out to your help. This is exploitation of the highest order!
The daughter will go through the same treatment by her daughter in law and son. I hope she does.
‘Use and throw’ has oft been done
Every usage from all has been wrung
Leave alone tea, the time of day
Is not wished an elder’s way
For flimsy faults grudges are flung!
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