Teaching children to appreciate parents: a short story

All of us have childhood memories of our parents and everything that they did to enable us to stand on our own feet, run and experience this world. Parents are a representation of God.

Even when we couldn’t speak, our parents easily understood our needs. Indeed, they did everything to comfort us, make us happy and to make us strong enough to fight and survive in this competitive world.

As a gratitude to parents, I am sharing a short story that I read several years ago. This short story will let you know how we can encourage our children to do good deeds in order to make the world a better place. This is a true story that happened during the medieval period.

An old couple lived near the coastal area. They had two sons, both of whom were married and had children. Once, the old man called his sons and told them that he wanted to distribute his property between the two of them. The elder son was greedy, while the younger one was loving and mature.

The younger one said to his father, “There is no need to distribute the property amongst us, as I wish to give my part of the property to my elder brother.” He said: “Brother! Take the entire property, but let our parents live with me.” The elder one was happy thinking that he got all the property without any unpleasantness and he agreed instantly.

The young son worked hard in an attempt to feed his parents, wife, and children. One day, after a full day of hard work, he earned a penny. While returning home he bought a fish from this hard-earned penny. He came home and gave his wife the fish to cook. While cutting the fish, the wife found a pearl inside the stomach of the fish. She gave the pearl to her husband. He thought that the pearl looks expensive and maybe he should take it to the king. 

He visited the king and displayed the pearl. The King sent the pearl to his quality checking department. And you know what happened next? When the king came to know about the quality of the pearl, he told the man, “This pearl is very precious and rare. I am very lucky to be able to include this pearl in my treasure.” The king thanked him awarded the man 50 donkeys and lots of gold and precious gemstones too. With all this wealth, the young brother became richer than the elder one. Now he had everything and lived a satisfying life with his parents and family.

I have shared this story to remind us of how important and precious our own parents are to us. It also focuses on the importance of good deed. Our parents do every possible thing required to bring us up. They work hard to make us qualified enough to be able to survive in every situation in life. Also, they stand with us in our difficult times, help us, pray for us. It is therefore our duty to comfort our parents in their old age.