By Amelia Tan

In Singapore, a rite of passage for a young person starting work is to give a portion of his or her salary to the parents.

Some of them even shoulder the burden of becoming the sole breadwinner in the household.

For me, the realisation that I should take on more responsibilities in my family came when my 55-year-old father fell dangerously ill more than a month ago.

He caught a virulent flu bug during a week-long business trip in Taiwan and had to be admitted to intensive care at the National University Hospital when he returned in late July.

Thankfully, he recovered fully after being in hospital for a week. But my mother and I are asking that he cut down on overseas trips as we are afraid he isn't as hardy as before.

We have also asked him to think about retiring in the next few years.

This prospect is hard to swallow for my very active father, who runs his own management consultancy.

As for me, it made me sit up to realise that my parents are not getting any younger, and I should help out more.

My father has always paid all the bills. My mother is a homemaker who quit her job more than a decade ago to take care of my older sister and me.

Even though my sister is now working as a management consultant in Chicago and I have entered the workforce, my parents still foot most of the household expenses.

The monthly allowance I contribute covers a fraction of the costs of the meals and transport that I use up.

I have also assumed that my parents would pay my school fees if I decided to further my studies in a foreign university in a few years.

I've been thinking how pampered I am and I don't even return the favour by showing support to them or lending an ear.

I spend most weeks not sharing a single meal with them even though I could. Instead, I choose to spend time clearing work or hanging out with my friends.

Sometimes when they ask for advice on little things " like the kind of light fixtures to have in the living room " all they get from me is a monosyllabic answer.

My parents, like many others, I suspect, don't demand much from their children. They've spent their lives taking care of us and aren't used to the idea of having it the other way around.

And when kids get used to taking their parents for granted, it can be a hard habit to break, especially when faced with mounting living costs and hectic work schedules.

I'm lucky not to have a mountain of debt, unlike 40 per cent of new college graduates in America, who start out with more than US$10,000 (S$14,363) in student debt. Many remain in debt until their mid-30s.

Sad to say, I fritter away a large portion of my pay on extravagant living, like regular visits to fancy restaurants.

But it's time for me to ease the financial burden which my parents have shouldered all these years.

It's time for me to grow up.

This article was first published in The Straits Times on September 8, 2008.