THE ECONOMY AND PARENTING OUR RETIREMENT AND WINTER YEARS.

In our country, in recent times, there have been special economic problems that have had an effect on the family. This is also the case in a few West African countries and though I do not claim to be an expert in African matters, I believe that this problem exists even in the rest of Africa.

The problem stems from our leadership. It appears somehow that dictatorship runs deep in the African man’s blood. On arrival on any throne, therefore, the African man begins to plot how to remain perpetually on it, be it a military throne or an ancestral one. He schemes till he effectively silences all opposition to these plans and then begins a dictatorial reign. A stay without accountability tends to lead to abuse and eventually this result in an impoverished and eventually unstable economy.

My country in particular is blessed with natural resources; oil and other minerals, arable land and human resources, probably the best brains in the world in almost every area of education. It has however witnessed much unstable leadership in the past forty nine years of its independence, and this has resulted in an unstable economy.

It has therefore become increasingly difficult to maintain a comfortable life style if you are an honest, hardworking citizen. During our parents’ time, their salaries were able to support an average lifestyle and they could send their children to good schools. When we graduated from university also, jobs were available. Our salaries were also able to support average lifestyles.

Now, however, jobs are becoming increasingly unavailable and parents often need to support their children by giving them financial support, accommodation and even sometimes need to pay their grandchildren’s school fees.    

This is a complete reversal from the African culture where children are supposed to support their parents. This is especially relevant in a system where the government makes no provision for its old. There is no ‘dole,’ old people’s home, or living quarters for the unemployed. Pension schemes are few and far between. The expectation used to be that children would look after their parents, and the children in previous generations had done this diligently.

The sad truth now, though, is that today’s children may not be able to afford to look after us as we might have wished. The government voluntarily or otherwise cannot look after us either. As old age approaches in this new dispensation, what then do we do?  

We should acknowledge that it is not our children’s fault that the problem exists. They did not choose the season to be born into. They did not choose to be born into this harsh economy. We must however teach them coping skills that will enable them to survive this economy and train their children for brighter days.

Despite the harsh economy we must also teach them to care and be compassionate.

Old people’s homes may not be available but young people’s hearts should always be available to care for their parents. Even if the homes were available, it is a thing of shame for an African parent that your children could not care for you, but had to send you to a home. There is a joke abroad about parents needing to flee back to Africa when they feel their European or American children planning to ship them off to a home!

As earlier stated these are the values that must be emphasized from early childhood. A child must be taught to care for his or her brothers, sisters and parents. Even in little ways, they must be shown how to give back to the family and reciprocate the years of care and nurture. Too often we ask nothing of the children and thereby raise selfish, self-centered, inconsiderate children. Giving must be taught and demanded till it comes naturally.

Generally we must also explain the values of a good family, and that there are expectations of them in the larger family. Though we have moved away from the time when a man’s wealth was measured by the number of sons he has, it is still clear that our children’s net worth can make a significant impact on ours. We should expect them to add value and to contribute even financially to the family.

We must maintain family interdependence. This means a caring family where parents are involved in their children’s lives and children remain involved in their parent’s lives, irrespective of the economic independence of both parties.

We should carefully look into how we can successfully achieve or maintain economic independence for ourselves and help to achieve economic independence for our children by equipping them to handle the economic challenges of this age, whilst maintaining family interdependence.

It has rather sad, to see families of ‘big men’ become insignificant, unimportant families because their children did not become ‘big children’. No family is successful without a successful next generation. We must weather the storm and ensure that our generations survive.

First of all we should determine what we want for our families.

What is our plan concerning the future of our family and what is our plan for our old age? We must prepare now for our old age.

If we look at the four seasons of nature we can use them to plan all areas of our lives.

Spring years (0- 25)                the season of nature when you grow your crops, can be likened to the season of life when we grew, married and gave birth to our children.

Summer years (25-50)             the season when you gather when you gather your seed, can be likened to when we raise the children.

Autumn years (50-65)             when you harvest and preserve what you have gathered, can be likened to when you prepare the children you have raised to handle their lives.

Winter years (65 & above)      are the years when you survive on what you have preserved.

Most parents that are reading this book are probably in either their late summer years or autumn years. We must create and maintain family interdependence so that our retirement years are spent comfortably and with dignity.

FAMILY INTERDEPENDENCY

There will soon come a time when we may not be able to continue as Managing Directors and Chairmen of multi-national companies, or even continue to fully run our one-man companies. A time when we cannot get to the electricity company or the telephone company, and the generator won’t work. When we cannot buy brand new cars and when, if we are not careful, our children are still looking up to us for economic solutions to their problems. We must have taught the children how to care for us. As we get older we could make a child a joint signatory to our bank accounts so that in the event of ill health the child has access to funds to care us (remember that the child may not have much to spare because of other economic issues!).

At the same time our children may need our help for much longer than they used to.

We should be ready to continue to help where we can.

It is suggested that we can achieve family interdependence as expatiated below.

FOR PARENTS                     DIRECT INVOLVEMENT IN THE LIFE OF THE CHILDREN UP TILL THE TIME THEY ARE GIVEN AWAY IN MARRIAGE.

                                               

                                                INVOLVEMENT IN THE LIVES OF CHILDREN AND GRAND CHILDREN

Parents must become and maintain relevancy that can translate to helping our children and ourselves. Parents should be able to maintain economic independence; should be ready to work harder and longer while they hope to get back to the days when children looked after parents.

We must keep generations afloat through the bad times and the good times.

FOR CHILDREN                  CARING FOR PARENTS.

THIS VERY OFTEN INVOLVES                                             ADMINISTERING THEIR HOUSEHOLD INCLUDING THE DOMESTIC STAFF (DRIVERS, COOKS, GUARDS etc), BANK RUNS, PAYMENT OF BILLS (ELECTRICITY, TELEPHONE, TELEVISION), ETC

The entire teaching curriculum will be relevant here, but especially the teaching on caring! Caring for your parents is not necessarily about money, it is about responsibility and this cannot be over-emphasized. A son should be around to help with the runs when his parents are too old to get about, while a daughter should be able to run her parents house hold, when they can no longer go to the local market and perform some of their other household chores.

Wills and the Family house concept.

Though this is not a legal book, it is relevant to discuss here what plans we are making for our passing to the great beyond! Africans hate to think of heaven, no matter how beautiful we believe the streets to be, yet it is important that we begin to tidy up our affairs legally, as soon as we begin to acquire tangible assets, and leave clear instructions for our children. The truth is that the upbringing of our children will be put to test when they have to manage the assets we have spent our whole life acquiring. A lot of children, sometimes at over 50 years old, have failed this test woefully when they begin to quarrel and even take each other to court over their parents’ assets. Others have immediately squandered such wealth and shortly thereafter fallen into penury because they do not have financial skills required to run the empires their parents have left behind.

It is suggested that wills are put in place with clear instructions for everything, starting from burials. Provision should be made for the disposal of assets. Particular care should be taken with the home we, as parents have lived in. In the recent past the practise had been that clauses would be put in wills saying that the parents’ home should be maintained as a family home and should not be sold.  From experience it appears to be one practice that is not likely to stand the test of time and which should therefore be stopped. The practice was put in place initially to keep the family together, especially the African extended family. The truth now is that if all children have done well and moved to their own homes with their own nuclear families, there is really no one to stay in the family house. Invariably it is usually the ne’er do well and extended family that tend to stay in the family house. Most times, they cannot afford to maintain the building in a good state and the nuclear children now would invariably inherit the bills of this family as well the cost of maintaining a deteriorating building. My recommendation concerning a family property is that the property be sold and proceeds shared between all the children. If a building must be kept within the family and cannot be rented out, my suggestion is that it be willed to a particular child who has sole responsibility for maintaining it.

A will should not be an instrument for punishing errant children and reward performing children. It should be realistic, acknowledging the character of the children. For instance it would make no sense to leave a fortune to a spendthrift or drug addict. The position of parents in respect of their assets and their wills should have been made known, to some extent, so that such wills does not create new lifelong resentment among children.    

  

QUOTABLE QUOTES

OUR FAMILY’S SUCCESS IS SHORT- LIVED WITHOUT A SUCCESSOR!

CASE STUDY

THE THOMAS EMPIRE

Chief and Mrs. Thomas are a couple who are the envy of the average Nigerian. Chief Martin Thomas graduated from the University of Ibadan (U.I) and married his heartthrob, the former Miss Lakasegbe who also graduated from U.I with a degree in English. Chief immediately went into business and got lucky and today he has hands in shipping, government contracts, importation of generators, roads construction, etc.

Chief Mrs. after a short stint at teaching English at St Savior’s school Ebute Metta, also went into business. She is a big time trader in lace and is the sole distributor of a fast moving brand of cosmetics in the Aspanda market at Alaba. They have a big mansion at V.I and several houses both at home and abroad. They have three children who attended St Christopher’s School Ikoyi and House of Lords Grammer School, Abuja for their primary and secondary schools (up to Junior Secondary School level only) respectively and thereafter proceeded abroad for their ‘O’ and ‘A’ levels.

The first son studied Aeronautical Engineering and works with a branch of Nasser in England, where he resides. He is 35 years old and still single. The rumour is that he lives with a male friend. The second son read Economics at L.S.E and married his British heartthrob.  They live in Ireland with their two children. The third child and only daughter has a P.H.D in Archaeology. She is 31 years old , and is based in Italy from where her discipline takes her to the biggest archaeology digs in the world. She is not married.

Meanwhile, Chief Thomas has a younger brother, Mr. Peter Thomas, who is a civil servant. He rose through the ranks to reach a level where he has stagnated due to a lack of professional accountancy qualification. He has five children and lives in Ajangbadi, on the outskirts of Lagos with his wife. His two older children both attended Federal Government secondary school and later the Universities of Lagos and Benin respectively. After many years of waiting for Chief to help them get big-time jobs, the older son, who is 32 years old, checked out to ‘Jand’ and is currently a cleaner on the London Underground. The younger daughter aged 30, has also checked out, though she went by land to Spain, and has been unable to visit home in years. She claims to be married to her high school heartthrob with whom she travelled to Spain. Neither of the two children has given their parents any grandchildren, nor have they been able to send money home to assist their father in taking care of their three younger siblings, who have now had to drop out of school.

Meanwhile, Chief Thomas suddenly takes ill and Chief Mrs. Thomas has to accompany him overseas for medical treatment.

ISSUES:

1.      What is the succession plan for the Thomas Empire?

2.      What type of cultural training were the children of both Thomas brothers given?

3.      Mr. Thomas’ life- what happened? Is he any better than Chief and his empire?

4.    Has either of them achieved economic independence for themselves and their children?

5.      Has any of them achieved Family/ Parent – child interdependence?