By Magdalene Ng

DO YOUR parents call you several times a day over trivial matters?

My mother makes five calls each to me and my younger sister on average each day.

She also calls my younger brother, who is based overseas, over trivial stuff once in a while.

Ma, who's hyperactive and easily bored, would call me and ask if the food she cooked, which my father would bring to my house, was enough for dinner, or if a show airing on TV was about rhythmic gymnastics, which my elder daughter used to practise.

These calls can get on my nerves, especially if they are made during office hours when I'm busy, and the questions are not important.

They annoy me and I am tempted to reply curtly, but I try my best not to.

My younger sister shares the same sentiments.

Ma, who lives with my father, suffers from the empty-nest syndrome, and its accompanying feeling of loneliness, something elderly parents experience after their adult children move out of the family home to form their own families, or work overseas.

This condition is more prevalent now that extended families are much less common, and tends to affect more women than men.

Sometimes, I wonder if we are fair to our elderly parents in the way we respond to them.

When our children call us umpteen times while we're at work, do we complain? Most of us are unlikely to do so.

But when our parents demand our attention, we can't be bothered to give them the time of day.

To many of us, our children come first, and our elderly parents, last.

But Ma deserves more, especially as she has survived hardship and come a long way.

She had a tough childhood, having worked as an apprentice and live-in maid since she was 11 years old. She then went on to set up a business in the 1970s. Her never-say-die attitude is an inspiration to me and my daughters. She has shown me, by her example, what I should do as a mother.

I learnt to appreciate her more - and the pain she went through to give birth to me - after I experienced natural childbirth myself about 18 years ago.

So I try to be more patient with her, and take her out for a meal or shopping now and then.

Just like our children, our parents also need a listening ear, and our time.

One day, we will be like them too.

With my elder daughter going to university next year, that day is drawing near for me.

myp@sph.com.sg

The writer is the assistant manager of Focus Publishing, the contract-publishing arm of the Chinese Newspaper Division of Singapore Press Holdings.

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