Parents often make sacrifices for their kids. But you seldom hear of it the other way around, and here are 10 stories of children making sacrifices for their parents.
1. 12-year-old Ellie just loves to dance and perform. But she also does something else that most others her age don’t have to – she takes care of her critically ill mother, Suzanne, who suffers from the rare and terminal condition of Multiple Systems Atrophy.
Says Ellie: “I try and give her emotional support and make her feel nice about herself. Other girls my age do stuff with their moms like shopping and swimming but most of my time I spend going straight from my bed to her bed and spending most of my day there. It has become normal now.”
2. In Boca Raton, Florida, Jennifer Guiterrez often cries when her 15-year-old son Jonathan is doing things for her. But he always reassures her that he doesn’t mind.
She knows that young boys his age should be running around with their friends and building teenage memories. Instead, he makes so many sacrifices for her, as well as for his grandmother and brother, while his father puts in 60 hours a week on the job.
Jennifer, his mom, has multiple sclerosis; his grandmother has pre-dementia, and his brother has a brain defect. But Jonathan sacrifices his teen-age years for one thing: the love of family.
What It’s Like to Be a Teen Caregiver: VICE News TonightJonathan is 15 years old. As the only able-bodied person at home during the week, before and after school he cares for his mother, brother and grandmother while also managing his football and school schedule. (via HBO)
Posted by VICE News on Monday, 1 January 2018
3. Derrick Taylor is 19, and he walked 17 miles a day to his job loading UPS trucks for $11.90 an hour so he could help his sick mom. All that he made went for her care.
Derrick’s co-workers were so moved by the young man’s dedication to his mom, that they decided to do something pretty special for him…. they all chipped in and bought him a Jeep, presenting it to him at work one day.
Derrick became very emotional at the thoughtfulness of his co-workers. He thanked all of them and assured them it was going to make a big change in his life.
4. In southwest China, 5-year-old Anna takes care of her grandmother and great-grandmother. The little girl is the only one who will do it since her father was put in jail and her mom ran off with another man.
Little Anna cooks, cleans and makes sure her grandmother and great-grandmother are cared for.
5. Drew Stewart is morbidly obese, weighing more than 700 pounds, but he still continues to take care of his bedridden mother the best he can.
Drew can barely walk himself, and he’s worried that he, too, will become bedridden if he doesn’t get a surgery to reduce his weight. But the last thing he wants to do is put his mom in a nursing home.
Says Drew: “Even though it hurts me to walk, I still have to do it. It’s not even an option for me to be not mobile because people depend on me.”
6. How far would you go to make sure one of your parents received medical care?
In China, 54-year-old farmer Wang Kewu puts his 89-year-old mom on his back and carries her to the clinic three miles away for her monthly treatment. He’s been doing this since 2010.
Says Wang: “She looked after me when I was little, now it’s my duty to look after her.”
7. Kerry Huffaker was terminally ill with brain cancer in mid-2016, and she was given only 9 to 20 months to live. One day, as she was leaving a radiation treatment, her 17-year-old son, Dylan, was waiting for her outside the hospital with a box of doughnuts, and the icing on them spelled out a very important …and touching… question.
It asked: Will you go to the prom with me?
Of course, things like that are almost always reserved for that special person in your life. Well, Dylan realized that his most special person… was his mom. Mom Kerry was very taken aback by it, and told him: “You don’t want to go to the prom with your old, bald mom… you’ll be embarrassed.”
But Dylan’s response to that was, perhaps, a little more icing on the doughnuts. He said, “No, I won’t. I’ll have the prettiest date there.”
A short time later, Kerry and Dylan went together to Canyon Ridge High School’s prom in Twin Falls, Idaho.
Says Dylan: “I thought about it and I can look back after years and years and remember who I went to prom with. I’ll know it was someone I loved who meant something to me.”
During the prom, the dance floor was cleared the Dylan and Kerry shared a special dance all alone. Playing was Garth Brooks’ The Dance.
8. Chen is from southwest China, and when he was just 7 he lost both of his arms during a massive electric shock. Now, at 48, he takes care of his elderly, bedridden mom, even without his arms.
He has learned to farm, cook with his feet and spoon-feed his mom using his teeth.
9. In North Yorkshire, England, 11-year-old Emily Wood takes care of her mother and her brother, cooking, cleaning and washing while her father works to pay the bills.
Her 48-year-old mom, Hayley, suffers from a debilitating condition affecting all of her muscles. Emily’s older brother, Joseph, also suffers from the same condition. Emily actually enjoys her job as the family carer. But her mom feels very guilty about it.
Says Hayley: “As a parent it’s difficult to depend on your child. I want to care for her and be the mom and do normal things moms do.”
10. A few years back, 37-year-old Tongming fell from the second story of a building he was working on. That fall injured his spinal cord, and he became paralyzed from the waist down. Soon after, his wife left him and took their 3-year-old daughter and leaving him with his 7-year-old son, Tanglin.
Every morning, that little boy gets up early, feeds his dad, then rushes off to school. During lunchtime, Tanglin rushes home to feed his dad again before going back to school. They survive on very little, as disability benefits in their area of China is very little – it amounts to $47 a month.
With that little amount, the boy has to buy food and medicine for his dad, and he applies medication often to the bedsores that develop on his dad’s body. Yanglin said his biggest hope is to grow up soon so he can earn money to fix his father.
Says the little boy: “I can’t live without my father.”
Bonus: In Wavertree, England, 80-year-old Tom Keating had to move into a nursing home so he could be taken care of. But it wasn’t too long after that that his 98-year-old mother, Ada, moved into the same nursing home… just so she could help take care of her son.
The two have a very close relationship in the home, often playing games or watching their favorite sports teams on TV, just the things a mother and son should do.
We are sure you enjoyed the above stories… watch for more: https://youtu.be/XVBmd_L2BBE
