Our relationship with our parents

By Elaine Tay, Manager

I have always been touched and impressed by Boss’s love for his parents. In a profoundly positive way, it has influenced my own relationship with my parents.

Boss has often shared with us that he chose a career in the financial services sector mainly because of his desire to give his parents a quality of life he believed they deserved. Growing up, he had flirted with the idea of either becoming an army regular or a teacher. But he realized that neither profession would have given him the financial capacity to reciprocate in a material sense, the selfless love they had showered upon him as a child. His love for his parents was the most significant motivator that helped him overcome the many challenges he faced in the early days of his career.

Of course, Boss’s expression of love and concern for his parents go beyond the merely material. Every Saturday, being the proponent of traditional Chinese medicine that he is, Boss makes it a point to perform therapeutic massage on his parents. These sessions are frequently lengthy, causing Boss to work up a physical sweat. He does the same on a regular basis for his wife, children and in-laws as well.

Even though his mother often insists that he not trouble himself with taking care of her, Boss always persists in doting on her and she eventually relents.

It also amazes me that whenever his mum nags at him, he continues to display childlike obedience and humility, simply nodding his head in agreement despite his age and with the considerable success he has achieved. It is a spirit of appreciation that drives his actions and gives meaning to his relationship with his loved ones.

Boss just last year purchased a landed property for his parents, who, for the last 30 years had been living in an HDB apartment. He did this in part because he knows how much his mother enjoys gardening (having come from a kampung), and in part to fulfill a vow he had made to himself that he would take care of his parents the very best way he knew how for the rest of their lives.

My own relationship with my parents, especially my mum, has matured ever since I joined JNP and came under Boss’s professional and personal tutelage. I have grown to appreciate her more and become much more sensitive to her emotional needs, being more proactive and nurturing of our relationship than I was in the past. I’ve taught her qigong techniques I myself had learned from Boss to help her maintain her health and I’m very pleased to say that today, she has a daily regime.

Our parents are the most important people in our lives. It is with them that we establish our first relationships and discover what it means to relate to another person. My relationship with my parents has grown and been redefined by the spirit of appreciation and gratitude I have been imbued with since joining JNP. I know that it will continue to grow in the same spirit. I wish the same for you and your parents as well.