It was 7.45 am and I was getting myself ready while listening to the radio.
"What has changed when it comes to family dinner?"
There was one particular caller. A man. He said that he rarely have time for family dinner and because he stays separately, it gets even harder for him to stop by his parent's place.
"I normally have dinner and skype with my parents at the same time. As if I was there but virtually"
I stopped and thought. What has happened? We have come to a point where we're so distracted by others that we forget what's more important in life.
Our parents were once working adult but they made time for us no matter how busy they were. The Generation X emphasize a lot about family ties and I believe that many of us here were brought up from a close knitted family including myself.
When I was young, I used to have my dinner in front of the TV and my parents? They sat at the dinner table. My sister does that too. Used to. My dad has always asked us to sit together because dinner time is the only time when everyone is at home. Being a teenager I was at that time, I ignored.
As I moved out of my parent's house to continue my education, I started missing having the family around. When I was away, either I'll pack my food home or dinner with friends. The feeling gets stronger during Ramadhan. When your friends from the city you lived in has their own family to break fast with. It was definitely a lonely moment.
It's heart breaking to see the generation today. Generation of material people. I've had a few friends who thinks that they do not have the time to see their parents even during weekends. I'm trying to understand on where their time spent. But I do bumped some of them in malls. Ironically they said they didn't have the time but ...you know.
It's easy for us to forget things and it's easy to think that parents are okay when we don't come home for dinner. The hardship that we had to go through in today's modern world cannot be compared to what our parents had to go through in the old days. They had to start from scratch. So sitting down with them for a nice meal is the least we can do. Because at the end of the day, when you lose your job and when you lose your friends, the first thing you'll do is turning to your parents support.
Family is Forever.
