You cry and beg your parents for the things you desire to have, even if they are outrageously expensive. And your parents buy it for you. You refuse to eat the food your mother has spent hours cooking on in intense heat, and you demand to have burgers or pizzas instead of home-cooked food. Your parents order it for you.

You drag your unwilling parents to the amusement park when they have just came home from the office, not giving them a moment of rest. They take you to the park. They take you to buy ice cream or to the toy store or to the mall or to the pool. They do everything for you.

Parents almost never say, ‘no’ to their children. When their children’s eyes fill with tears, even fake ones, the heart of a parent cries. They keep the needs and wants of their children above their own. They readily sacrifice their time, sleep, work and money for their children. Out of love. Every time.

Some of you must have noticed when you go shopping with your mother for Eid, weddings or parties, she never buys clothes for herself first. She always buys the most beautiful dress and the prettiest bangles for you before even looking for her own dress. No matter how expensive the dress is or if it is out of her budget, she buys you the things your heart has settled on because her heart becomes content and satisfied when you are happy.

Your father may have loads of office work and a number of business meetings to attend. However, when you ask him to go for a drive to get ice cream, or go out for fun, he makes sure to take out some time for you in his busy schedule, even if it comes at the cost of him not meeting deadlines or staying up at night, sacrificing his sleep to complete his work. But he never lets you know this. He never lets you get a single idea of the struggles he has to do to make you blissful and content.

Our parents are the only people in this world who love us more than they love themselves, the ones who care for us more than anyone else can care for us. Yet, many of us take our parents for granted. We do not appreciate them like they deserve to be appreciated. We do not show them proper gratitude or appreciation for what they do. We overlook and forget the things they do for us, and do not even try to reciprocate anything in return.

We think that it is our right as children that our parents meet all our demands and take care of everything for us. We only focus on our needs and wants, without considering that as children, we too have a duty towards our parents — to take care of our parents and obey them in everything.

We do not show them as much love and affection as they deserve. Sometimes we even go as far as misbehaving and acting rudely with them. We throw a tantrum when a demand is not met, we stop talking and resort to our worst behaviour to show our displeasure. And at those times, often they are the ones who then make up to us and feel sorry for our foul mood, even when they are not at fault.

They treat us like precious pearls protected inside oysters, hiding us from all troubles and dangers. The hard oyster shell saves the pearls from the saltwater and waves of the harsh sea, keeping their shine intact. The shells protect the pearls from erosion, but in doing so, the shells get eroded themselves. They lose most of their beauty, but they never let the pearl get damaged. Our parents are just like those shells.

We should stop ignoring our parents and stop being ungrateful. Our parents are the biggest blessing we have been bestowed with. We should stop neglecting them and start loving them and start appreciating and recognising their value.

The least you can do is pray for them and try to give them the love and respect they deserve, spend valuable time with them and cherish all those moments. Pray for their health longevity and success.

But above all, spend time with them, even if it is just 15minutes daily. Make sure you give all those 15 minutes to them without being distracted by anything else.

Love them unconditionally as they do to us and stop taking them for granted. We only realise the value of parents when they are gone, and then it is too late to do any of the things that we regret not having done to them when they were there.

Published in Dawn, Young World, October 9th, 2021