NEGLECTING PARENTS

Case Study

From the cases mentioned above, it can be seen that it is not the
only children are being neglected by their parents (as usually
reported) but parents are also being neglected by their children. At
the time when they should spending their “golden years” with their
family, the neglected or abandoned parents are either been left alone
ion their homes or sent by their children to public hospital or old
folks home. In some extreme cases , there are children who chase away
their old parents or leave them at the roadsides and bus stops.

There are some reasons that bring about to this issue. First reason
is lack of Islamic teachings. The children do not know the
responsibilities of children towards their parents. They take their
parents for granted. They also do not aware and fear on the punishment
that they will face in the hereafter. Second reason is that, nowadays
parents say that they want their children to have more than what they
had, thus parents are spoiling their children. This lead to the
children growing up without know the value of doing things for
themselves and feeling that they are entitled to everything. As time
passed and their parents grow older, the children feel there is no
obligation to care for their parents physical and emotional needs.
Besides that, the experience of children in the past also can lead to
this issue. Some children may have had traumatic childhood and may
resent their parents. For examples, some parents give to much stress
to the children or abuse them. As a result, when the children became
adults, they decide to return what they had experienced back to their
parents. Another reason is that, the children could or would no longer
bear the cost of taking care of their aged or inform parents. Most of
the parents abandoned at the hospitals with either cancer , stroke or
mentally ill patients. The children are treating hospitals like a
“dumping ground” because the government provides food, shelter and
medication. By sending their parents to the hospitals and later on do
not come to pick them up, it saves them the hassles of applying for
places for their parents in government-run welfare homes.

In order to overcome this issue, all levels of society should be
responsible, starting from the family institution itself. Firstly, it
is the responsibilities of parents to inculcate their children wiith
islamic teachings and good moral. The parents main responsibilities is
to make their children understand their role as khalifah of Allah in
earths. Prophet Muhammad said: :”every newborn child is born in state
of fitrah. Then his parents make him a Jew, a Christian or a Magian.”
As the parents act as role models to their children by nurturing their
children with the best qualities as muslim such as loving others,
upholding the ties of friendship and so on. The children will later
grow as a good muslim, thus fulfills their responsibilities as
children undoubtedly.

In conclusion, event though most of the helplessly parents never get
angry or put any grudges against their children, it is not an excuse
to ignore this issue. Neglected parents is a serious issue whereby
everybody has to put their best efforts to overcome it.