As a kid you don't notice the fine details of life. When I was young all I had to do was go to school, do my homework and help out around the house, everything else was either done for me or provided to me by my parents.
My mom has been a waitress and bartender for nearly 40 years. When I was a teenager she would work the mornings at a breakfast restaurant, come home and catch some sleep before heading off to bartend overnight. She never complained, never made excuses, never blamed me for how hard she had to work. We didn't have a lot, but we had enough and I never truly looked at the why or the how.
Now that I am the father to four beautiful little girls I can fully comprehend what my mother went through, mind you I am not a single parent like my mother was.
On April 26, 2014, a Facebook post by musician Roberto Tapia went viral, and that post put the true love a parent has for a child in perspective. It was not a true story, it was more along the lines of a fable from Aesop. It started out as such:
A strange request to be sure, but once the rest of the story plays out you truly begin to understand the sacrifices your own parents made for you.
There is a price for everything and someone needs to pay it.
This is a gut wrenching reality check for so many people who have lived an entitled existence of "give me whatever I want", that is why this post was so powerful, it had a double meaning.
I completely agree with the sentiment expressed in this post. Even though my mom tried to give me what I wanted, I still needed to work for it, I needed to put in the work to help out because my mom couldn't be expected to do it all on her own. Teach your kids to earn what they get, to respect those that have sacrificed for them to have what they have.
View the original post here.
Entitlement is the curse of the current generation.