DEAR EMILY,

I am a troubled daughter abroad. My dad who is a widower asks a lot of money from me. He cannot handle money and is full of debts and is even being sued for bouncing a check a decade ago. His relatives are poor and old.

On top of that he is sick and needs to buy a lot of expensive maintenance medicine. He is also unkind to the people who take care of him. My problem is I am not well-off myself. I work hard to pay for my family?s needs and the schooling and therapy of my special child, which costs a lot.

How far does one go to honor one?s parent? Are we or are we not helping by sending provisions to them? Are we in a position to give them lessons or just leave it to the Lord to forgive him? Parents seem to think that they have the right to their children?s earnings and that they can demand to be taken care of. They even resort to emotional blackmail.

TROUBLED DAUGHTER

If you had anything to do with your father?s debts?like your education bills or plane fare or wedding expense?then you have the responsibility to settle them. But if he incurred these for something other than life or death issues in the family, he has to own up to them, no matter his circumstances now. A debt is a debt is a debt- unless he is forgiven by the debtors themselves.

Help him as much as possible without breaking your back or diminishing your spirit doing it. But feeling acrimonious for supporting him all these years isn?t healthy.

Switch your perspective by looking at it not as a burden, but as a gift to him. Consider that he may not be even here for long. Children forget that while they were growing up, parents scrounged around short of begging, stealing or borrowing to put food on the table and pay for their education.

If he weren?t broke now, he might even be the one helping you out. And think beyond his unkindness to those around him. He is old. He is in pain. He is broke. His world, for all you know, is a mass of frustration, and venting it the only way he knows how.

It certainly will be difficult to give away the little you have, but do it for your kids? sake. Kids are an impressionable lot. How you care for your parent?seeing your kindness and filial devotion to them, however hard-up you are?will be imbedded in their consciousness. They will do the same to you, when your time comes.

Remember the saying, ?what goes around comes around??

E-marcelo@inquirer.com.ph. Subject: Lifestyle.