Village Journals
Resonate your identity with Naseeb journals. Express your opinions, share your thoughts, post your writings and connect with like minded people through the power of expression.
Resonate your identity with Naseeb journals. Express your opinions, share your thoughts, post your writings and connect with like minded people through the power of expression.
Kind Treatment of Parents at Old Age
IT is narrated that the Prophet (sallallaahu ?alaihi wa sallam) repeated: ?May he be humbled (or cursed),? three times. When he was asked to whom was he referring, he said, ?The on who witnesses one or both parents live to old age, and does not enter Paradise (by not serving them and not treating them with ihsan)?. (Muslim).
With the advancements in modern medicine and nutrition, more people are living longer now, then ever before. Because of this, Western societies are faced with the task of caring for more and more elderly people. About 2.2 million friends and relatives care for 1.6 million elderly loved ones in the United States.
Those numbers can only increase, says Shirley O?Bryant, Family Relations Researcher at Ohio State University. The number of adult children who must care for their elderly parents is also growing, she says. More than 80% of couples in their 50s and 60s today have at least one living parent, compared to less than 50% at the beginning of the 20th century.
?Also, today?s young couples are having fewer children than in past generations,? O?Bryant says. ?Fewer people have brothers and sisters with whom they?ll be able to share the responsibility of their parent care.? As life spans get longer, this problem will only get more difficult.
?In the future, the major problem will be that many old adult children will need to provide care to their very old parents,? O?Bryant said. ?The age of the caregiver will bring on a whole new set of complications when they try to meet growing family obligations.?
In many societies today, these care-facilities for the elderly express the major fragmentation in the social and family fabric that has occurred over time and the wrong changes in values and lifestyles. These facilities which now are called ?Senior Housing,? have become the transitional place where old parents spend their last days before they are permanently moved into their graves.
As for the children, they see it a fitting solution. They have to work hard during the day and need to get rest or have some fun in the evening. They have no time to spend with their old parents except in some occasions here and there. The days when the son would come home from work and go to check on his mother or father before he turns to his wife and children are gone.
As Muslims, it is not only a social obligation, but also it is our duty to Allah (swt) to care for our parents in their old age, as they cared for us in childhood. This is the least anyone can do for his parents and it is only appropriate in this regard to remember to saying,
?Whatever you do to your parents your children will do to you.?
With the advancements in modern medicine and nutrition, more people are living longer now, then ever before. Because of this, Western societies are faced with the task of caring for more and more elderly people. About 2.2 million friends and relatives care for 1.6 million elderly loved ones in the United States.
Those numbers can only increase, says Shirley O?Bryant, Family Relations Researcher at Ohio State University. The number of adult children who must care for their elderly parents is also growing, she says. More than 80% of couples in their 50s and 60s today have at least one living parent, compared to less than 50% at the beginning of the 20th century.
?Also, today?s young couples are having fewer children than in past generations,? O?Bryant says. ?Fewer people have brothers and sisters with whom they?ll be able to share the responsibility of their parent care.? As life spans get longer, this problem will only get more difficult.
?In the future, the major problem will be that many old adult children will need to provide care to their very old parents,? O?Bryant said. ?The age of the caregiver will bring on a whole new set of complications when they try to meet growing family obligations.?
In many societies today, these care-facilities for the elderly express the major fragmentation in the social and family fabric that has occurred over time and the wrong changes in values and lifestyles. These facilities which now are called ?Senior Housing,? have become the transitional place where old parents spend their last days before they are permanently moved into their graves.
As for the children, they see it a fitting solution. They have to work hard during the day and need to get rest or have some fun in the evening. They have no time to spend with their old parents except in some occasions here and there. The days when the son would come home from work and go to check on his mother or father before he turns to his wife and children are gone.
As Muslims, it is not only a social obligation, but also it is our duty to Allah (swt) to care for our parents in their old age, as they cared for us in childhood. This is the least anyone can do for his parents and it is only appropriate in this regard to remember to saying,
?Whatever you do to your parents your children will do to you.?