WE OWE A LOT TO OUR PARENTS

On Mother's Day and Father's Day, we send
our parents cards and flowers and gifts. We
tell them we appreciate them, we tell them
we love them. Then we spend the rest of the
year trying to avoid them.

Well, some of us try harder than others.

According to two recent polls, 36% of elderly
parents say their grown children have failed
to help them in a time of need in the past five
years.

And that doesn't even include all those
parents who can't remember. Perhaps poor
memory is a good thing. If I'm ever an aging
parent, I want to remember my children as
the most loving and caring people. And if
they're not, I want to forget.

But the only thing I'll probably forget is to put
them in my will.

Let's face it: Parents can be a pain at times.
They expect so much out of you. Do this, do
that, eat this, eat that, marry this, marry that.
There's no satisfying them.

But you have to overlook your entire
childhood to turn your back on your parents.
There are so many reasons to be grateful to
them. Here are just a few:

---They didn't abort you. Yes, some of them
easily could have, but they chose to accept
at least 18 years of responsibility. Sure, you
brought them lots of joy, but you also brought
them lots of migraines. Thanks to you, they
had to invest more money in aspirin than in
the stock market.

---They changed your diaper about 2,750
times. You may have many talents today, but
for the first years of your life, your only talent
was soiling a diaper. Soon after that, you
developed another talent: wetting the bed.
You were so good at that, they thought you'd
do it for the rest of your life.

---They forced you to do your homework. You
preferred to watch cartoons on television, but
they knew you couldn't make a career out of
that. Unless you ended up on welfare. They
encouraged you to earn good grades and
graduate from school. They didn't want you
to sell drugs for a living, without going to
pharmacy school.

---They lost so much sleep worrying about you,
they haven't yet caught up. That's why they
have to go to bed at 7 p.m. They'd have to
sleep continuously for five years to make up
for your puberty alone.


---They spent a small fortune on you. Without
you, they could have vacationed every year in
the Bahamas and bought a sports car --
instead of that totally uncool station wagon.
And they could have bought lots of fancy
appliances and furniture, items that are
guaranteed to never talk back or ask for
allowances.

---They were so proud of you. Why do you
think they took one billion photos of you? You
weren't that cute. They even snapped shots
of you taking a bath, as though that was some
big achievement. When you took your first
step, they acted like you had walked on the
moon. They wanted to tell everybody, even the
mail carrier. When you spoke your first word,
they wanted to put an announcement in the
newspaper. They wanted to call CNN.

Consider yourself lucky if you have two parents
or even just one. You can't replace a parent.
You can't go to the store and buy one, even if
you're as loaded as Bill Gates.

Parents aren't perfect, but chances are, no one
will ever love you the same way.

Especially if you act the way you did.