Are You Wasting Your Youthfulness?

Yesterday, while discussing with some of my students, the issue of becoming successful in life and showing gratitude to your aged parents popped up at the middle of our discussion session and a student of mine over bloated the magnitude of how he felt it should be, perhaps how he thinks it's supposed to be. He started with the example of fulfilling his aged parents youthful dreams that they couldn't achieve due to their strife toward ensuring their child's wellbeing was proper catered for. What amused me was his stance on building a mansion or mansions for his parents, flying them abroad for vacation and all that and ensuring there was more than enough cash money for the "aged" parents to squander. I countered the unnecessary showering of luxuries for the aged parents on the grounds that they don't actually need all that even when one is capable and willing to ensure those flamboyant lifestyle for it could be put into other usefulness so long as the parents are made comfortable but his stubborn stance on "thats how it's supposed to be" baffled and still baffles me because, this aged parents have lived their lives and the most they require of you is ensuring they are well catered for. He dabbled here and there with the excuse of "the problem is that too many knowledge acquisition has turned most of us into thinking in the way and manner of the Western world" and it being an African way of life, worse still was his argument that it's an African mentality. In trying to make him see reasons why it's a foolish reasoning, I explained to him that Westernisation is not, and never will be, civilization so thinking from my own perspective isn't Westernization (or the way of the White Men). I used myself as an example, telling him why I believe it is unnecessary to indulge such because I actually have no material thing that I can entice my parents with other than ensuring their comfort and this is so because they quite have achieved before me and all they need from me is just to ensure am happy and doing better than they did whilst growing up in their youth. Furthermore, I explained to him that our parent actually don't need the excessiveness because it's only normal that every parent hopes to have their children living in a better generation than theirs whilst we ensure that of the coming generations and that this is the only assurance to civilization. Looking back, I uncovered to him that growth and development is what precedes civilization not the amount of amassed wealth (afterall we do have people that a tagged "money miss roads") not money or any form of riches. From his standing point, he was like "that excessiveness is a must and that is what we owe them" and I strongly argued against that. I mean, do parents forget morals and bother not about how their child came about some riches?" in our present day society. Or is it that our drive for success has supplanted our morals and ethics, which these days has led into public looting by some selected greedy few? This discussion went from here on to "everyman is a product of his society" hence, criminogenic tendencies are acquired during the growing up phase not innate and his stance on "some people are born that way" led me into questioning him with "do you believe in the existence of God?" and if you do "then, God purposely  created some humans to become thieves". He didn't agree God would have done that hence, my point of "everyman is a product of his society" was proven in that, everything a man does is as a result of what his society has imbibed in him overtime.
TO BE CONTINUED...