Respect is one of those things in life that you are taught from a young age, it is one of those lessons that can make people appreciate and tolerate you or simply despise you.
The first people to teach you respect are your parents trying their maximum best to instill in you good values, good manners and respect. Our parents do more for us than we can ever really know, or at least most do. We might not appreciate and recognise their efforts and contributions to our lives while we are still young, especially the youth who at times seems to forget that their parents or guardians have stood behind them and molded them into the people they are today.
Just off the bat the youth should respect their parents because they are older and wiser than us. They have lived longer than we have and have experienced life long enough to know what is good or bad, at their age there is not a lot of experimenting going on, they are guided by experience and wisdom that has come with age. Our parents have raised us, they gave us some of their best years in life and can never have them back. They gave us their time, love, effort and more patience than we really give them credit for. In essence our parents made us who we are today.
You have to respect your parents, because they are always there for us no matter what. You might not see it at first but they are always there for us, even when we make mistakes they will still stand behind us and give us a helping hand without giving up on us. As a youth you have made more mistakes than you care to remember and will probably make a whole lot more, some of these mistakes will be punished and will most probably land you in some uncomfortable positions, including with your parents, but you can rest assured that your parents will never desert you, like some friends and institutions will.
One day you will outgrow being a youth and become a parent to a youth yourself and like our parents you will start to pass on the lessons you learned from your parents, so if anything respect your parents for helping you raise your children already.
We should never turn a blind eye to our parents because they are the only people that have our best interest at heart and showing them respect is one of the best ways to show our gratitude.
*Olavi Popyeinawa has a diploma in Alternative Dispute Resolution and is currently studying law, LLB at the University of Namibia (Unam). He will weekly contributing this column on youth mattersInstagram: niceguy_olavi Facebook: Olavi Longfellow Twitter: @OlaviPopyeinawa