The Wheel Turns

Children today are an unhelpful lot at home, the adult children included. They treat their home as a fully serviced apartment. To get them to do some basic chores like washing up their own dinner plates is hard, so hard that it hurts less to do the chores yourself. And, they have a different view from yours on why they need to do their own chores. Your view is that they need to do their own chores, so they know and won't detest house chores when they finally live on their own, and it is also a way of taking responsibility for their own affairs. (Recently a research shows a whole new generation of young Australian men are looking to marry maids). But listen to their views, they ask "why are you being calculative when you need to wash any way, washing one extra plate wouldn't hurt". I suppose, when you need to justify something, you can always find the right words.

Sometimes I told my younger son Julian that he needs to help dad, and then only his own children would help him back in the future. His quick mind then turned this out "Dad, your children are not helping you now, does that mean you did not help your dad when you were young?" Good point, son, good point. But your dad is not any other ordinary dad. So here was my reply "Yes, I did help out my dad. But look, there is always a starting point for a chain of actions and reactions. by not helping me now, you are in fact starting out on a new chain, which will get you a new set of reactions."

I hope I spoke the truth. Now dad, did I really help you? Speak to me.

The wheel turns.