by Mary Monique Renegado | Monique is a blogger in her twenties behind the successful and youthful blog Life Begins At Twenty from Cebu, Philippines. The undergraduate is taking BA COMM in her 3rd year at the University of San Jose – Recoletos. In Monique’s free time, she enjoys participating in international writing competitions by writing poems, essays, fiction short stories, novels, and the like. In her lifestyle and wellness blog, you can find sisterly advice about how to navigate your twenties. If you want a constant drive for motivation, relationship guidance, and adulting pep talks, Life Begins At Twenty is the best place for you to develop the right attitude and mindset.
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Unlike Valentine’s Day, showing you love your parents doesn’t require a holiday. You don’t have to participate in an extravaganza and give in to the commercial hype. On the matter of showing heartfelt love, money is never needed.
We owe our parents our whole lives. We are who we are because of them. Showing you love your parents should be non-negotiable and not up for debate. Every thing they’ve done for us cannot be repaid in any shape or form. They deserve every bit of goodness that comes to them.
We forget that as we grow older, they are too. The hard truth is there will be a time when they are no longer with us and one day, we will feel like we didn’t spend enough time with them.
As they get older, we don’t want to miss a moment getting to know a new version of their experiences and hobbies. If we don’t make it our responsibility to show gratitude and appreciation to our parents, who else will? For those of us who plan to get married and start a family, remember, we will eventually relate to this feeling. We wouldn’t want our future children to abandon us when we grow older, too. If we start this habit while we’re young, then perhaps our future children will pick this up as their future culture as well. So, here are 5 cost-free ways to show you love your parents.
#1 Make Quality Time for Them
Time is a precious asset and treasure, so sacrificing some of it for your parents is a selfless gesture. Take advantage of the weekends of your rest days to spend quality time with your parents. When you’re at work, answer the phone when they call. You can also initiate everyday conversations to ask them how they are and talk about spontaneous trips. Make time for their birthdays, anniversaries, special days, etc., and be courteous enough to offer something to the table and not be late. Some parents are either too old, sick, or busy to run their own errands anymore. If you have the time and energy to do some of them, it’s a fantastic way to show them you love them. Taking the time out of your personal life to run their errands for them, you’re showing you still have them on your mind and wouldn’t want them spending hours running around.
#2 Cook Their Favorite Meal
As they say, food is a symbol of love. What you cook and how you cook is a simple gesture that can be shared with the ones you love. Depending on what you are cooking, a huge amount of time, effort and skill will be used to prepare the meal. Cooking your parents favorite meal is a superb way to show your affection and attention to detail. A well-cooked homemade meal is a hundred times better than buying from restaurants. You can save money and have the freedom to put what you want to make the food taste even better.
By cooking for your parents, it will make them feel like kings and queens, which they deserve to feel like every day. Remember the days when you used to feel like a king or a queen, sitting on the couch and watching TV all day, while waiting for the food to be served to you. Think about the times they cooked it so well and how you didn’t even manage to help out. Also, be cautious of the meals you prepare in regards to your parents’ health and condition.
#3 Host a Party at Home
Show your parents you love them by letting them experience a complete family again, being together and away from other commitments. Gather your siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, and plan a fun day with all of them. Temporarily keep electronic gadgets away from everyone to not divert away from making a conversation.
You can host a party at home as you used to when you were kids. To spice things up, you can set-up basic indoor games like corn-hole or ping-pong. With simple snacks and drinks, you can get the whole family in the zone for laughs. Not only do these things keep everyone excited, but it uplifts the mood (if there are awkward situations between any of your family members). At the end of the party, help with the clean-up. around the house.
#4 Talk with Your Parents and Reminisce
Talking with them is a simple yet effective way to strengthen the parent-child bonding, now that both of you are grown-ups. Tell them how your life is going, how you are feeling emotionally. Don’t just chat about the typical work topics. The mood and style of talking as adult peers are very different from how they used to be, when you were just a child/teen. If your family is not one for being vulnerable or open with their feelings, take this chance to change that. Push away their awkwardness by telling them how you feel first.
There are other ways to do this as well. You can write a genuine letter or an I-Love-You card and get artsy with it. Share a fond memory with them by reminiscing events from your childhood until now. Every day is a great day to talk about how much you’ve been through as a family. You can open up photo albums and share a laugh after every page. You can start a conversation about a funny or worthwhile memory when you were a child.
#5 Ask Your Parents for Advice
In our twenties is the time to set goals and priorities. Some of us opt for higher education, some proceed to start businesses, and others get married or start a family. Whatever your path, know that the best people you can trust and ask advice from are your parents. What hurts parents the most about their children getting older is the fear that they won’t need them anymore. Your healthy growth and independence are proof of their unconditional love and good parenting, and that makes them the proudest.
Deep inside, your parents wish you still “need” them. One way to show you love them, is to ask for advice. Maybe you can ask about maintaining the household or intimate relationships or finances. You can pretty much ask them about anything that you don’t seem to get the hang of quite yet. And even if you already do, ask them anyway because they’ll feel important and needed again. They will see this as a sweet gesture and respect — that no matter how grown-up you are, you still go back to your home, to your roots, to your parents.
The Takeaway
Love your parents while you journey through your life and find your purpose. Do not forget to remember the very people who gave life to you. No matter how big your dreams get, always include your parents and their well-being. There are a million ways to show you love your parents without it costing a dime, so be creative and sincere!
And if you’re unsure of how to start this process, start by paying attention to how your parents show you love as a daughter/son. Satisfying their love language isn’t a matter of extravagant expressions. It is a matter of the heart!
For more heart-to-heart advice from Mary Monique, be sure to follow her on Twitter @_lifebegins20 and on Instagram @lifebeginsattwenty You can also subscribe to her blog by visiting Life Begins at Twenty