I AM MY PARENTS’ RETIREMENT PLAN! By Nkechi Bianze

I AM MY PARENTS’ RETIREMENT PLAN!

It is very easy for some of you Nigerians to want to sound posh and say “Plan for your retirement; your children owe you nothing.”

Do you know that after the age of 18, your parents owe you NOTHING? Well, now you know.

1.
A parent can actually kick his or her ADULT child out of the house if he or she so wishes. It is assumed that as an adult, you should be taking care of yourself.

At 18, I was yet to get into the University. I was still in my parents’ home eating their food, spending their money, and living in their house. They owed me NOTHING but they allowed me.

When I was 20, my father borrowed his one whole year salary (in advance) to pay my first year tuition fees in the UK.

For more than a decade, my parents used a much larger percentage of their earnings on our education. So, how were they supposed to save for old age? Did I hear you say “You didn’t ask them to give birth to you so it’s their responsibility?” That means you still don’t get it.

My siblings and I were over 18. We were ADULTS and the law permitted my parents to kick us out of their house. But they didn’t anyway; they kept spending on us.

2.
Nigeria does NOT have a working welfare system. In the UK, Canada and most most developed countries, even though you don’t have a child and you never worked your whole life; as long as you are a citizen, the government is responsible for taking care of you at old age. You are guaranteed 1. Food. 2. Shelter. 3. Clothings. 4. Healthcare as needed. 5. Protection. 6. Security. 7. Basic Human Right.

I AM MY PARENTS’ RETIREMENT PLAN

Ladies and gentlemen, who guarantees you all these things in Nigeria? Even you able bodied earning person in Nigeria, are you guaranteed all that?

Stop watching Hollywood and seeing SOME white people say they owe their parents nothing and start to copy. Your situation, orientation, background, socialization, upbringing and reality are a Billion miles apart. Una nor dey the same level at all.

It would make sense if an average British or Canadian says “I’m not my parents’ retirement plan.” You know why it would make sense?

While you were still eating your parents’ food and watching TV in your father’s room; she probably left high school at 16/17/18 and started working because her parents expected her to at least contribute to the house bills or move out of their house and get her own apartment.
Go to McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC etc and see high school leavers. They start work and start taking care of some of their tabs as soon as they are 16 and after high school.

A typical British or Canadian who is 18 considers it a PRIVILEGE not a right to still be allowed to live free of charge in her parents’ home. While in Nigeria, 28 year olds are still in their parents’ homes living free of charge and even collecting money. Even upto January when I got sick and had to get out of work for a while, I still collected money from my mum and Dad. At my old age o o.

While my parents were borrowing their salaries to pay our tuition fees; some of my Canadian and British mates were signing their ways into hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt for college/University loans. Some of them who don’t like the idea of college loans have to work a few years after high school to save up for University. And you Nigerian whose poor mother sold akara, sold her wrapper to train in school is saying you are not your mother’s retirement plan? Are you sure everything is alright with you?

I have seen people whose parents used their retirement gratuity to send abroad or sponsor their education or start up businesses for them.

My cousins who came to Canada in 2015 were fully sponsored by their father. Their father received a retirement payout of about N20million and used N15million to sponsor his two children to Canada for further studies. They have graduated and got good jobs. Recently got their PR. Would it make sense for these my two cousins to open their mouths and say that they are not their father’s retirement plan, even after their father used his retirement money to set them up in life?

Some parents gave up career to raise their children.
How many government-funded care homes do we have in Nigeria?

Nigeria is NOT a country where you can say you are not your parents’ retirement plan. Except of course you are one of those unfortunate people whose parents were deadbeat.

But as a Nigerian, if your parents actually played their roles in your life, sacrificed for you, went wide and beyond for you, you’d be an insensitive child not to consider yourself part of their retirement plan.

Just like my father was, my mum is in a career that will pay her good money in gratuity, then pay her her pension till she dies. She really does NOT need our money to survive at old age. But even at that, I’m still her MAIN retirement plan.

I AM MY PARENTS’ RETIREMENT PLAN

Whenever I want to get a house here in Canada…. I mean my mortgage, I’ll spare a room downstairs for my mum because she doesn’t like it upstairs or basement. Yes! My mum will have a room in my house. I was planning same for my Dad but he didn’t live to see me get to that stage of my life.

See ehn… if you were born by nonchalant parents who cared very little or nothing for you, or who were deadbeat, or if you saw your father driving big cars while you were being chased out of your school for small school fees or if you had to struggle your way through life with very little or no assistance from either or both of your parents; then maybe it would make sense and be easy for you to say you are not their retirement plan.

However; try to understand that some of us saw our parents borrow, deprive themselves of the good things of life, sweat, work day and night, only to use EVERYTHING to fund our dreams. It is difficult for any child who came out from my type of background to say he or she isn’t her parents’ retirement plan.

Personally, I feel that if I can’t be my parents’ retirement plan, then I’ve failed in life.

i love this

#OpraDre

written By Nkechi Bianze

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