Are children obligated to take full responsibility of their parents?
Parents and children : )Phew! The complexity of this topic is like holding a butterfly with your hands placed on your back. If you ask someone if the butterfly is alive or dead and they say alive, you can squeeze it to death. If they say it is gone, you can release it and let it fly.
Are children obligated to take full responsibility of their parents?
It is a parents’ responsibility to take care of their children in an ideal situation. However, the question arises, up to what age? Is letting the child grow and ushering them into adulthood considered cruelty? Let us learn from an eagle. When the eaglets come of age, they are pushed out of the nest. Not out of lack of love but to propel the young one to independence.
The core obligations of children are to respect and care for their aging parents. The divide as to how far is too far in supporting your parents depends on personal attachment, moral responsibility, and conscience. I am the type that would do whatever is necessary to see my parents comfortable by providing the bare minimum of food, shelter, and medical care. Once in a while, I will throw in a vacation. Bearing this in mind, they had their life plans before they had me. I consider myself part of the plan but not their ultimate goal of life. In this regard, some opportunities will arise where I keep off their business,’ and there are others where I will come in. I enjoy giving legal counsel, identifying the best doctors for them, helping them with their smartphones and computers, driving them on long drives, or facilitating them. Why do I do so? Because mine is to make their last days on earth comfortable and less stressful. We, the youngsters, must extend the same level of kindness we would want to be extended to our parents. Gone are the days when we squander our money with friends as our parents languish in lack and poverty at home. Selflessness does not have to be financial or material based. Let us show appreciation by spending time with them and create unforgettable memories.
On the other hand, parents need to be grateful, not for material things but because their children succeed and have a decent society position. I have witnessed parents who demand so much of their children to a point where they feel inadequate. Young women and men alike end up engaging in illicit sex, crime, and drug abuse to satisfy their parents’ demands to the detriment of their future. They live in bitterness as they hustle to ensure they maintain a societal standard that the parents expect to brag on their children’s successes. It is essential to realize there is no better gift a parent can give his children than positive exposure and paint a bright future. Some parents fail to fulfill their purpose in life and desperately try to live through their children’s lives. Forcing them to buy them the car or house they never had. Society needs to realize miserable parents can make unhappy children. As parents receive the respect, they deserve in the words of Abraham Lincoln, “All that I am and all that I will ever be, I owe to my mother.” Would your children say this about you as a parent?
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This is one of those topics that touch all of us. Every one of us has parents. Even children who were abandoned at birth still have parents whether they know them and are in their lives or not. Though few of us would think that in such a case an abandoned child has any responsibility for their parents. Though there are cases of parents in such situations who will prey on the emotional vulnerabilities of a child they may have abandoned. I know you could say this is an extreme case but it is quite common for adoptive parents of children from less developed countries to be forewarned about trying to locate and contact the birth parents as these situations often develop into one where the child once an adult feels an obligation to help their impoverished parents out.
But I am sure you are thinking much more about situations where children have long-established relationships with their parents.
I think this is a concern that is more prevalent in developed countries whose social safety net has large gaping holes. To put it bluntly, this is an issue in the USA where it is quite possible that as a child you can find yourself having to start dipping into your finances to support your parents.
This is much less the case in most European countries, however where the national social safety nets don’t abandon people with unplayable medical bills or exorbitant nursing home fees.
In less developed countries this is less of an issue generally as more people already live in multigenerational households and frail aging parents are more likely to be part of those households rather than abandoned or living alone. Of course, this is not universal.
I would conclude that the best solution to this issue is a social safety net that does not abandon people when they become vulnerable for whatever reason.
Thanks for bringing up this interesting subject.
Thank you for reading this article and your comments.
Hello Diana,
It is a wonderful philosophy. I have siblings and we all live pretty far away from each other. one of my sisters is currently fostering our father due to his inability to take care of himself. I will also do the same for my mother in the event she ever needs this kind of support.
I do feel strongly about taking care of the ones who provided me with the life and opportunities I have had. I sometimes think about other cultures and how they handle this. Latin and Asian cultures are probably the most impressive to me when it comes to this. I love to see the houses full of different generations of the same family. I think it is the coolest!
Thanks for writing on this topic and getting people to think about it.
Chad
Thank you Chad for your comments
Well, if you love your parents, why wouldn’t you want to take full responsibility of them? Just like they were always there for me (and I think that’s the case for a lot of people) I want to be there for them as well. But do it out of love instead of obligation, because anything worth doing ought to be done out of a willingness of the heart.
Thank you for sharing, I love your words “do it out of love instead of obligation”