This is a story about parents. And I promise it has everything to do with the single life.

Amid all the focus we put on ourselves in our single 20s — when will I find love and the perfect job, how exactly do I afford a new car and a flat-screen TV — how often do we remember the people who helped make us who we are?

In the parental department, I am undeservedly lucky.

My parents still give me money whenever they can even though I tell them no. My mom brings me things I don't always need and many things I do, such as cleaning supplies and sandwich bags filled with quarters so I can do my laundry. My dad feeds my cat when I'm out of town and once voluntarily did my dishes.

But I'm guilty of taking them for granted and assuming that they will always be taking care of me.

To once again reference that television handbook, “Sex and the City” rarely involved the characters' families. Seldom did the show address anything more than sex, men and clothes, let alone parents or what to do when they get older and how to pay for their medical bills.

I'm an only child, so ultimately my parents' care will fall to me. Even single folks who have married siblings often inherit responsibility for their parents because it's assumed they just have more time on their hands.

Oh, how do we balance these things, our families and our single lives, our culture of selfishness and a need to stay close to the people who reared us and molded us though they aggravated us, too?

I refuse to think that my parents are aging, though the signs have begun to creep into their lives. They eat early dinners. They go to the doctor — a lot. They qualify for senior citizens' specials at restaurants. They aren't old, but they are getting older.

For a long time, I subconsciously assumed our age difference somehow meant they wouldn't understand me, so I kept my problems from them.

But in my 20s, I finally see my parents as individuals, people who made mistakes when they were my age, and I love them for that.

If I really want to be honest about it, my parents are the reason I am confident enough to be single and live alone in my apartment. They are the only reason I have my education, which allowed me to get a job.
Even if your parents were evil and ignored or hurt you, this is the time in our lives when we should  — at the very least — try to understand them, these men and women who created us out of love or lust or really bad ideas.
Because here we are, full of the possibility we inherited from them, like it or not.