Life's changes

I cannot help but reflect on the situation today and how life changes.It seems like not to long ago that we were bringing up our 4 girls,seeing them through school ,university and finally settling down with the spouses of their choice and making their way to find their own lives.From children to mothers that is a big change and we are fortunate that we have lived to this stage to see this happening.Lucky also that our children need not have to worry about us as we are both very independent and thank God still fit and healthy.We may take this for granted but if your parents are sickly and if have to look after them it is a big strain on you.We are happy that we can spare our children this. We look with a little bit of amusement how our own children bring up their children and see how anxious they are about their own kids.I'm quite sure that our grandchildren will be spoilt and how they turn out later in life will actually depend on the extent of the spoiling.Children today, even from the time of our own children are so protected and have the benefits of parental love as compared with our time .We learned to be independent from a young age and we ate whatever came our way and there were no side effects.Today's children if given the wrong food would end up with coughs and what nots.We swam in the rivers, played in the rain ,ate sambal belachan and were none the worse off.I cant imagine if I were to put my grandchildren to play in the rain.Probably their mothers (my children ) would think I'm crazy. I can see my own little girl doting over her son.Carrying him for hours (even when he is asleep) is a pleasurable chore>I do it for a while and feel the strain because the baby is not light.But to the doting mother this is nothing.Man goes through a cycle,birth ,adulthood ,parenthood and I cant imagine if the children turn out to be unfilial.We are lucky our children care for us and need not have to go through this kind of heartache but one cannot help wonder if after all they have to go through parents have to face the problem of ungrateful and unfilial children.Probably this will depend on the kind of up bringing and the values which are taught to the children from young.That is why no one can take the place of parents in the growing up process and we really pity the parents who have to entrust their children to nannies because of their career commitments.even leaving their children with the grand parents is so painful ,what about nannies? We are happy our children are going through this without too much of a hassle.We are happy that they can grow up to be parents in their own right and what is more important we are still around to lend a helping hand when needed.As grandparents we have the chance to do with our grandchildren what we perhaps could not have done with our own children as we are better off financially ,psychologically and mentally than we were.We have no careers to worry about,no headaches about putting the children through school and university and the need to balance a career with family.Its their turn now...Today if any of the grandchildren needs anything we dont even give a second thought but when we were young we had to really think and very often faced a choice of wanting to give what the children wanted as against what we could afford to give. That is why our grandchildren would be spoilt not only by the parents but by us too.The cycle of life is really something but then it is not everybody who can go through this cycle and those who do have much to be thankful for.To go through childhood, adulthood,parenthood brings a lot of precious experiences some painful but the rest mainly joyous !