debt

I wonder how many adults (am I an adult? I always forget) feel personally responsible for their parents' happiness? Is it even fair of me to want things for my parents, and think they should make certain choices about their lives, because it's what I think would be best for them? They're definitely adults - shouldn't they be able to figure their lives out for themselves, or at least be allowed the freedom to mess it up if that's what happens?

Why do grown children come back to their parents with this feeling that they (the children) know better than the parents? I don't think this used to be the case. Used to be, the older you got the more respect you were given, and children were the ones who had a lifetime of catching up and learning to do to reach the point of their parents and grandparents. Now, it seems as if children become independent so quickly and have so much more external input that they feel as if their parents' advice and experience isn't as relevant anymore.

Is the experience of our parents, which they use to teach us about life, a single brick to begin with when building our own lives? Or is it a structure that shapes us and that we spend our lives learning to fill?

If we spend our early adulthood worrying about our parents, and our middle adulthood worrying about our own children... and then come back to worrying about our parents again when they're old... when do we get to relax? Oh, right - that was childhood.