Parents are living longer than their own fathers and mothers due to better lifestyle, healthcare and improvement in traditional medicines. But their children cannot wait that long, and they want their parents out of their own houses sooner. It is either these children want to share the spaces to themselves; sell the house to share the proceeds or just blow the money they did not work for. Either way, the parents are facing a new dilemma they never anticipated around the world.

Many parents thank their God for African cultures and local balanced upbringing for the success and exemplary behavior of their children. But we must be sincere, many parents tried their best and their children still fell by the wayside. More children provide comfort whenever they can and make sure they pay back their parents in kindness, gratitude for the effort and sweat expended on them. Every parent can’t blame themselves or get all the credit for the way children turn out.

It has been taught many times that the best inheritance you can leave your children are good character, values and local cultural education. Otherwise, no matter what they inherited from your sweat, blood and pension would be sold in a day to those with values, character and skill to live on. There is a tendency by parents that have worked hard since their childhood days with their poor parents to swear that their children would never go through such a hard time.

Unfortunately, this is the worst burden they can place on their children because those children would hardly learn how to survive. Since they cannot survive on their own except with a silver foot in their mouth, their children will become poor again like their grandfather. Those ones may teach their children how to survive. It is like a revolving destiny of poor parents, wealthy children to learn how to escape the poverty of their parents.

These privileged children develop a strong sense of entitlement to the parent’s sweat, labor and properties as if they acquired them by their own diligence. They want their own share of what never belonged to them except by the blood relationship they share with their parents. Even a little resistance from any of the parents elicit a strong sense of hatred, enough to call bandits or friends to kidnap them in exchange for ransom from their parents.

It happened to a father that loved his son so much, he never revealed to him that he adopted him without any blood relationship. Though his father was still healthy and strong, when he fell ill, the adopted son had already planned how to move him into the Old People’s Home. The father was so pained and surprised, he had to rearrange his will with his lawyer. This adopted son finally gently told the father the house was sold and must move to a good homecare.

This adopted son already planned how he was going to spend the money with his friends and spouse. Before closing on the house, the lawyers had to do title checks. When the Prodigal son was informed that he is not the biological son and the house cannot be sold before the death of the father, he fainted. Even more shocking was when he was told the house would go to orphans. It can never be sold until the father’s death.

There are dysfunctional families that take everything for granted. Pray that everything you worked for over half a century does not end up with prodigal children especially in a dysfunctional family where parents spite one another, compete for attention to gain the love of their children or one of the parents is absent from home. These days, fathers are being advised by daughters to watch out for their last years in life.

Those of you who grew up with spoiled rich kids wonder how they could end up being visionless with all the wealth their parents possessed. They eat fish freely given to them but never learned how to fish. Most of those who failed refuse to take responsibility for their recklessness, some even blamed their parents for their laziness. Their friends watch as these kids become complacent and waste precious time away while they work hard for their future.

Poor children dream about what they are going to buy their own parents when they become older and successful. The rich children claim their fathers already have houses, and their mothers have cars already. So there is nothing to buy! Usually some of the parents spoil their children, buying them almost everything they ask for in the toy stores. The problem is children’s toys get more expensive as they get older.

In the old days older brothers were sent to work so that he could send their younger siblings to school. Many of them regret it because when those younger siblings become successful, they can never live up to the expectation of their elder brother. The same is true when girls were held back because of limited resources so that the boys could go to school and become successful. Successful siblings take care of themselves and their family first.

Their stories are similar to the parents who are disappointed that their children ignore them in their old age. It may be hard to come up with such excuses these days when there are equal opportunities and most governments provide free education up to a certain level. There may also be grants, loans and scholarships from various bodies locally or internationally. Nevertheless, there are still impoverished communities struggling to break out of their destiny.

If you have to do it all over again, would you leave your hard work, blood, sweat and pension to poor children who would carry your values or your Nepo-children? Privilege by birth because of parental responsibilities have been abused to the point of reassessment. What we find out at the end of the day, is that the colonial legacy of European culture has brought our children into lasting bonds of which they are stuck. So attached are they to this culture, they will not let go.

Nepo-children have proven that they must depend on their parents for life and sell everything the moment their parents die. Well, the parents cannot avoid blame after seeking good education abroad while neglecting schools at home. So called “good education” for the children’s future is a sellout of culture and country. Neither the parents or the country benefit from children that have been taught to care only about Me, Myself and !.