Do you remember when you were the kids and you were taught to pay respect to parents and elderly people and were given many lessons to interact with parents in a noble manner? Parents are the blessing of the God and they are the reason for our existence. Parents contribution towards fulfilling of our desires and needs of the family remain immense. The world carries out the worthless activity by celebrating Father’s Day, Mother’s Day and Parents day in order to convey the strong message to the universe that “joint family structure” matters. This trend circulates vigilance among all and most of us have a higher value to their parents and few of us are still diverted to the direction once they have grown up.
The sociologist has enumerated four reasons for why old age is deadly. Firstly, withdrawal from active employment, the second body enfeebles, third it deprives us of nearly physical pleasure and final is next to death. When an individual reaches declining age where it requires an auxiliary of youngsters but dejecting to it they face multiple problems including social, economic, physical and psychological or mental problem. The life is the harsh truth as one born, grows up, gets married and becomes dad itself and enjoys reverence as head of the family. But as the age declines, the youngster takes charge of all those things that man once enjoyed. This is the period where elders require higher support from their family. Unfortunately, they don’t receive the reverence that they deserve in our society. When an individual becomes aged, they feel the need of their offspring and their desire to spend maximum time with youngsters but this happens no more and youngsters depicts lack of interest to spend time with their parents. People assume that the elder age parents are the burden on them and most of the aged people survive on their pensions and retirement plans. This is an awful period of life when offspring becomes unknown. The celebration of the world towards specific days for the parents continues over decades but no one pays heed to the real problem.
Pakistan is among developing countries and faces manifold challenges including political, economic, social and many more. The major problem occurs due to the population explosion. As per recently conducted census, the population of Pakistan is recorded approximately as 207 Million and at the present time, Pakistan has 11.3 million people having age more than 60 and this number is supposed to be increased to 43.3 in 2050 that will be approximately 15.8 percent of the population. This can be overcome through adequate government mechanism, as unfortunately the plight of elderly people isn’t much different. Pakistan is an Islamic state most of the people have shared doctrines comprising on similar believes, values, ethics and religious practices. We need to change our thinking patterns for refurnishing our soul by implementing Islamic teachings in our lives. Allah (S.W.T) acknowledged in Surah-Al-Isra verse (17:23) “ and your God decreed you not to worship expect him and treat your parents with gentle and noble words when they are in old age”. This clarifies that how the parents are important for all us. We have distracted our way from Islam to materialism, so we need to pursue Islamic teaching and ethos to pay homage and reverence to parents and if we do that in letter and spirit than the mentioned facts and figure will change for good.