My parents
Posted by Morutea on Oct 21, 2006 · Member since Oct 2006 · 1 posts
Hello all,
It is my first post :)
I want your thoughts on this:
Do you feel that because your parents may have supported you when you were younger, that you "owe" it to them to support them now?
(Pay the bills they run up etc, just because they did it for you when you were younger and unable to work)
Thanks.
All you owe them is the honor due to any non-abusive parent. If that honor calls you to help them in a time of need, that is not a repayment, it is love. :)
Welcome to VegWeb, Morutea.
Nicely stated, 7. I would add that anyone who has children expecting such a 'repayment' may be very disappointed.
Now I have a question to parents. Is there anything your children could do that would cause you to no longer love & support them?
Since I'm not a parent, I have no answer. ;)
My personal opinion is that it is ok, even honorable to help out your family (or others) on the rare occasion they need it. But if it were to become a habit and they repeatedly expected it without taking responsibility for, and amending, their financial situation or spending it wouldn't be healthy for you or them.
I believe most parents, in their healthiest form, want their children to be financially "successful" and independent. That requires the ability of the child to decide what would hinder them from achieving that skill and learning to say no to those things. In the end, you have to look out for yourself in order to make sure that you can look out for them in the future when they do have those rare unavoidable emergencies.
LEZLY-- I have seven children (15, 14, 9, 7, 6, 4, 1 1/2). I don't ever want any of them to feel like they owe me anything. I won't even let the older ones borrow from me to get something they want; I'll either want them to have it and buy it for them, or just say no. Life has too many dynamics already, why put more into the parent/child relationship than absolutely necessary? My children do love and honor me, therefore, I know, should the bottom fall out someday in my old age, they'll be there, not to pay off a debt, but because someone they love is in need, so that's where they need to be. BTW-I don't take care of my children because I owe them: that idea has gotten many a poor parent into quite a bit of trouble! ;)
Haven't answered the question yet- NO
Parents are obligated legally to care for their children until they can care for themselves. I don't believe the relationship is reciprocal (although you might find that if you are a parent's heir, you become legally liable to their debts, etc.-- even if the debts outstrip the inheritance-- and I think in all cases that children are legally liable to pay for a parent's burial...unhappy topic, I know.)
But what you're talking about isn't really a legal matter, it's a social one. Lezly is right: nobody owes anybody anything (unless they actually owe them for borrowed money, hehe.) I should hope that financial support comes down to affection, situational assistance, and guidance, rather than to obligation. I think 7 and firefightress said it beautifully.
I'm not a parent. I can imagine cases in which I would break off relations with a child or parent, but it would take extreme pressure. My mom used to say when I was an intolerable teenager that she would always love me, but she didn't have to like me... I think there are a lot of safety valves like that in relationships.
it is not my personal belief that you have a responsibility to take care of them, but it would honorable as already mentioned in this thread. it should never be expected because it is their duty as parents to provide to their children until their children are ready and able to support and provide for themselves.
Hi Morutea,
My own experience has taught me that there are occasions when 'helping' someone does not actually help them. Conversely, it serves only to temporarily mask their failure to accept responsibility for their own actions and the discomfort this has caused them - discomfort is a very persuasive teacher. In the long run, the only thing they learn is that you or someone else will rescue them from the consequences of their own actions. In the process, the development of self-reliance and responsibility is thwarted in favour of dependence on others and the instant alleviation of discomfort. Perhaps, in this instance, your parents might be better helped by practical information regarding the accessing of budgeting assistance and how they might manage the repayment of their own debt.
*I'm unfamiliar with available services in the US but here in NZ it is possible to access free budgeting advice with competent advisors who will make contact with those companies to whom monies are owed and arrange repayment plans for their clients.
Best of luck.
Many apologies to all others not Morutea.
But.. I just saw your same post on the MSI boards. ..weird.
My mom used to say when I was an intolerable teenager that she would always love me, but she didn't have to like me... I think there are a lot of safety valves like that in relationships.
My mother said that too! ;D
My mother has changed so much over the past 20 years. We can talk, but we are not close. Somedays I don't even like her. And I'm sure there are days she doesn't like me! But, I remember the woman who raised me on her own back in the late 50's & early 60's. I had a wonderful childhood & teen years & it is largely because of my mother that that is the case. That is the woman I honor by being there for my mother today.
I get along so much better now with my mom than I did when I was a teen. We're great friends, so long as we're not living under the same roof and quarreling about how things need to be done. I owe her a lot for the personality I grew up to have, and have always loved her, even when we drove one another berserk... but she's almost diametrically opposed to me politically and morally.
Having people that I love, even when we are dissimilar and frustrating to one another, is what grants me the ability to put social things above selfish ones, I think. :)
I'm not sure how to answer. It almost depends on how your parents treated you while you were growing up. My mom & aunt and uncle are all supporting my grandmother right now because she is a widow and neither her or my grandfather put any thought into a retirement fund or nest egg or whatever you call it. So she's virtually dependent on her kids. My mom says she would never want to end up like that.
I got the nerve to actually ask her the other day, what she had planned for her own retirement and if she, as she said, avoided her mother's mistake of not planning for anything..
She said she's not putting anything away because she "forgot" when she was younger and doesnt think it would matter if she started now. She basically laughed and said in not so many words that she'd be handing the burden over to my brother and I when the time came..
I think it is irresponsible to rely on your shildren in your old age - but, to help them when they need it and be there for support (out of love, not obligation) is indeed honorable. My mother wont get much money out of me when I am older because we dont have a healthy relationship; I'm in college right now and lost my scholarship and working to get it back (I'm very wary of owing money from school loans so I avoid them) and my last semester cost me nearly 2 thousand dollars (working minimum wage part time here) which I paid completely out of pocket... and then she went and claimed to my father (they are divorced) that SHE was the one who paid for it, to save face on her part.
::shakes head sadly:: I dont feel much "obligation" towards her. I'll be brave enough on this forum to say I'll be pushing her onto my brother if she does indeed think she's gonna mooch off of one of us instead of putting some work into saving money - you know, instead of remodeling the house every 2 years or buying new furniture every time she gets a child support check from my dad.
There are some deadbeat parents out there. A women I work with has a mother that constantly throws her money away, can't hold down a job and runs to the daughter, whose income along with her husbands is o.k., not great, just ok. This woman is in her 40s and needs to get a grip and I would support my coworker when she's had enough and cuts her mother off.
On the other hand my parents are in their 70s and have worked hard all their lives. They were good parents and provided for me as a kid, and helped me out as an adult. I would do without myself if it would help them. I would suffer myself before I let them suffer.
Kids look after their parents in their very old age. It's the right thing to do, providing the relationship is intact.
welcome new comer,,
being the product of a teenaged mother who had two children by the time she was 17, and the product of an abusive father, i can speak from experience. my mother did the very best she could. yes, she made mistakes, yes, she was emotionally damaged from prior abuse, incest, abandonment and poverty but she was there if not always emotionally, then physically. she worked, she tried, she nurtured, and i know through everything that we went through together, she loved me! when she was anorexic, bulimic, suicidal, depressed, and high- i knew she loved me and she was trying to do right. i would do anything for my mother even though at times our relationship is strained. i would support her if she needed me- not out of obligation, but out of love. i would NOT give anything to my father even if i had every monetary advantage in the world. being the parent of a teenager, i have told her more than once that she does not owe me anything! its just she and i and she often says she feels guilty when she leaves me to go hang out with friends. i tell her that i lived my teen years, its her time and to not worry about me- thats not her job. her job is to be the wonderful person that she is becoming. if i ever get in a bind, i will get myself out of it without help from someone who i birthed. to me a good parent is one who is a caretaker free of judgement and resentment. thats my story and im sticking to it. ;D ;D
I'm not sure if you can consider what my parents did to me as taking care of me but they did at least provide a roof over my head, although I tried to stay at friends' houses whenever possible :-/ So uhm I'm not doing anything for them when they get old and need me. In fact I plan on moving soon and never seeing them again.
I have NO relationship with my parents. They make no bones about telling me I am worthless, stupid, a waste of space and about every name they can think of to call me. I am 46, college educated, a mom of 6 and emotionally pretty well together (physically I am a mess, but that is another story).
My parents were 16 and 19 when I was born. My father was competative with me and bent over backwards to tell me I was never ever EVER going to be good enough, you name it, I'd never be good enough. My mom is handicapped, having had polio in 1952. She is bitter, hateful and has a negative attitude about everything. She has post-polio syndrome and is not very well herself. She remarried recently and my dad did so also, several years ago. She married someone to take care of her.
I have long understood that if it ever came down to my having to care for them physically I could not do it. I don't have what it takes to be patient in the face of ongoing verbal abuse and disapproval for all of my efforts. I am in no position to help them financially, and to be really honest, they didn't do a lot of supporting me financially either. We never had enough food, my shoes always hurt my feet and if I had a coat for the winter, I was lucky, as I often did not. My kids have it way better than I did. THere are few extras, but there is always enough of the necessities.
Children do not owe parents, it is quite the other way around. If you are a parent and you do it right, your children will love and respect you. They will also grow up knowing that they don't owe you anything more than living a good, clean and honest, happy life. I have one headed to premed next year and she insists she will take care of me in later years. I said no no no!!!! You don't owe me that. If I am physically able, I'd love to take all my grandkids every summer so moms and dads can work (I have yet to have any). I told her that if she can and I can, she might "owe" me that part in her life, but that is IT.
I don't think that parents should financially support adult children anymore than adult children should financially support their parents. It is up to each of us to plan and prepare for our futures.
The responses to this post have portrayed a very common thread in a lot of lives. While I did not go into any details, there is a reason I began my first response to this question by singling out non-abusive parents. A lot of us have suffered beneath those who should have lifted and emotionally nourished us. But here we all are, most of us out of compassion. It's very encouraging to see so many strong and well adjusted hearts. Passing on to our children what we should have had, instead of what we did have, will certainly preserve a few hearts and minds. Because we don't want to be our children's burden, and because we have shown them love and fairness, they will be there should we need them to be. Need is quite different from want or carelessness-you never know what the future might hold, it's good to be loved.