Having parents who show extreme gratitude for everything you do for them and who never act entitled even when they have every right to be.... is a flex we don't talk about enough. It's easy to miss how rare it is until you see the opposite. Some parents keep score. Every sacrifice is catalogued, every school fee is an invoice, every favour comes with a reminder: "After all we've done for you..." But then there are parents who flip it. You send them small money and they thank you like you sent a fortune. You buy them a shirt and they tell everyone who visits. You fix something in the house and they look at you like you just built the house from scratch. You know they could demand more. Culturally, they are _allowed_ to demand more. But they don't. They choose gratitude over entitlement. That does something to you as a child. First, it makes you want to do more. Entitlement breeds resentment. Gratitude breeds generosity. When someone makes you feel like your little effort is huge, you naturally want to make a bigger effort. You don't feel drained. You feel seen. Second, it preserves dignity on both sides. They never have to beg. You never have to feel guilt-tripped into giving. Love stays love, not a transaction. Third, it heals a generational wound quietly. Many of us grew up watching parents who loved loudly but thanked rarely. So when your own parents thank you excessively.....when your mum calls three times to say "God bless you for the airtime" or your dad says "Thank you, my son" for something you consider basic.....it rewires something. You realize respect doesn't have to flow only one way. It also takes immense discipline for a parent to be like that. Especially African parents. The culture tells them: "You gave birth to them, they owe you." To reject that script and instead say "thank you" every time requires humility. It means they see you not just as their child, but as a person who had a choice to show up and did. If you have parents like that, you are wealthy in a way money can't measure. They raised you, sacrificed, lost sleep, and still have the grace to act like you are doing them a favour. That is not small character. That is elite parenting. And if you're becoming a parent yourself, copy it. Be the parent who is quick to say thank you, quick to appreciate, slow to demand. Your children will not forget it. Because entitlement may get you compliance, but gratitude will get you love that keeps coming back under the rain or sun.

Let me try to attempt my question...I don't think he's undisputedly the greatest ever but for the first time he's in the conversation proper + Harry is still active so that can be a challenge..no one knows what he could still go on to achieve. However, I believe Harry Kane is now the greatest English Striker ever. Especially because........ of the other four English men to have won the ballon d'Or he's got more goals than all. However, If you want to judge the greatest ever English footballer based on accomplishment....then that's got to be Bobby Charlton. World Cup winner, European Cup winner, Ballon d'Or winner, Munich survivor who rebuilt Man Utd. No one else has all three. I believe he is still the standard. Then....You talk about Stanley Matthews, Kevin Keegan, Bobby Moore Matthews won his only Ballon d'Or at 41. Keegan is still the only Englishman to win it twice. Many purists still pick them. If you talk about Modern Longevity.. then Wayne Rooney and Harry Kane tops it Rooney: Man Utd all-time top scorer (253), England top scorer until Kane broke it, 5x Premier League, 1x Champions League. Kane: England all-time top scorer (now 75+), Tottenham all-time top scorer (280), Bayern's single-season record (44 goals), European Golden Shoe winner x2, now Ballon d'Or. On pure numbers, Kane has passed Rooney. On trophies, he still trails Charlton, Moore and Rooney. So I'd say winning the Ballon d'Or last night surely makes Harry Kane the best English striker ever, undisputed. Other great strikers like Shearer, Greaves, Lineker, Rooney never hit that height+they didn't outscore him. It also makes him top 4 best English players ever in my assement. Charlton, Keegan, Kane, Rooney. The ballondor does NOT make him automatically #1 unless you value sustained individual excellence over World Cup/Champions League medals. England has always valued the big team trophy more than any other nation. If you ask me "Who would I want leading my line for 10 years, rain or sun?" Then it's Kane. If you ask me "Who achieved the most for England?" - it's still Charlton because of 1966. The Ballon d'Or doesn't end the debate. It just means you can no longer have the debate without Harry Kane.

Is Harry Kane now the best English player to ever kick a football? Or we still have our reservations?

To score 73 goals in a calendar year is borderline insane anywhere in the world. Talk less of doing it at the very pinnacle of football without being a Messi or Ronaldo. That is what people forget when they talk about Harry Kane's Ballon d'Or. Messi did 91 in 2012 and we thought we would never see anything like it again. Ronaldo did 69 in 2013 and it felt like a glitch in the matrix. Those numbers were supposed to die with them. They were numbers for aliens, not for normal elite strikers. Then Harry Kane, at 31, 32, did 73. Not in Turkey. Not in Qatar. Not padding stats against 8th division teams in a cup. 73 goals in a calendar year playing for Bayern Munich and England. Champions League knockouts against Arsenal, Real Madrid, Inter. European Championship knockouts against France, Spain. Bundesliga title deciders against Leverkusen. He did it without being Messi or Ronaldo. And that is the whole point of his story. Messi and Ronaldo scored those crazy numbers because they were the system. The whole team was built to give them the ball within 25 yards of goal, 10 times a game. They had 7 shots per game. They took every free-kick, every penalty. Kane scored 73 while being a number 9 AND a number 10. Watch the goals back. 19 of those 73 were headers. 11 were outside the box. 21 were created by his own first pass - he would drop to the halfway line, ping a 50-yard diagonal to Sane, sprint 60 yards, and finish the cross. He took 3.8 shots per game. Less than half of what Ronaldo took in 2013. That's why if he was still in the Premier League, he would never have won the Ballon d'Or.(You can disagree with me) In England, 73 is impossible. The league is too physical, the mid-table teams get at you well, you have 4 competitions, you get kicked 5 times a game. The English system would have broken his body before he reached 50. He had to go to Germany, where the game was more technical, where a team like Bayern creates 25 chances and you only need to convert 2. He needed alignment. And when the alignment came, fate could not deny him anymore. You may not tick the Champions League box. But if you turn up every single time for 10 years, if you are consistently world-class when others are only occasionally brilliant... One year, the numbers will become so crazy, so undeniable, that they will have to give you the trophy anyway. That is what happened. 73 goals. No Champions League. One Ballon d'Or. Not because he finally became Messi or Ronaldo. But because he finally proved you don't have to be.

Harry Kane going from football’s most famous trophyless player to a Ballon d’Or winner might be the greatest example of why changing employers can improve your life. Cc @GoldbergCFC