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Comment by david-cako | Hacker News Reader

>I made it out and got a nice job in tech, but like many of my peers it is I who support my parents. I pay their health insurance, I lend them money for groceries, and I'm financing my dad's chemotherapy. Do you know how hard it is to save up for a house (on the west coast !!) knowing you'll never get a windfall from Mom and Dad? When in fact they are a liability budget wise?

I can only imagine how difficult that is. This is an interesting distinction between western and eastern culture too. I wonder if the obligation to take care of your parents is less pronounced in eastern households that are wealthier.

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It's the opposite. The obligation to take care of your parents is definitely more pronounced in eastern households. See filial piety [1]. I'm Chinese and grew up in both Asia and the US. First of all, wealthy Chinese is a pretty small minority, so most working 20-somethings and 30-somethings are paying a portion of their paychecks to parents to support them. For those lucky enough to come from wealthy families, most are still expected to care for them in other non-monetary ways. For example in America many Chinese immigrants of the older generation can't drive; taking time off your work and taking your parents to their doctor's appointments is often a responsibility you have. (which of course means you can't live far away from them; there's going to be more and more work caring for them as they grow older.)

Like GP, I also grew up in a lower income family and made it out well in tech. My only advantage is that I'm older and started working 15 years ago, which lead to being able to afford to buy a house during the lowest years of the housing market (2010-12) so I have a really low mortgage in crazy bay area. I don't know how anyone in the bay would be able to save up for a house if they have to support their parents in addition to paying their own rent.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filial_piety

The question was about wealthier eastern households, not western versus eastern. I too wonder about the differences between richer and poorer eastern households.

What comes to mind is the stories about "parachute kids" with (relatively) wealthy parents that sent the kid abroad, ostensibly for study. They end up in an extreme form of latchkey existence - still Eastern in intent, but living largely alone and with few obligations, they tend to be adrift at a much earlier stage of life, leading to occasional news stories about crimes that earn prison time, or of "little emperors and empresses" that have been spoiled and have difficulty adjusting to interaction with the rest of the world.

The film "Better Luck Tomorrow" explored this - not specifically the parachute kid status, but the trouble that overprivileged Asian teens get into. It's fictionalized but also based on some real events.

> I wonder if the obligation to take care of your parents is less pronounced in eastern households that are wealthier.

For East Asian families, it's still there but it is non-existent from a financial perspective. It's no different from the article even though it describes the US. I've personally seen several scenarios of approx 30 individual families:

1. Kids were either extremely spoiled so they ended up with a poor work ethic, were incompetent, or both. They are not millennials. Parents ended up supporting them for the rest of their lives. Their wealth eventually consumed in one generation with their businesses either being sold or destroyed. In all these cases, the parents were content with grandchildren.

2. Kids were high achievers. Stereotypical scenario of getting into the Ivys or international equivalent, with the right finance, law, or engineering jobs right after with continued progression. Parents still gave a lot of financial gifts even though they weren't needed.

The only real expectation when the parents are financially well off is that their children still take care of them when old age becomes an issue i.e. no nursing home. parents will live with one of their children until they die

I don't believe so. There are 2 cultural differences I've noticed as a son to immigrant parents in the US.

1) My parents primary goal was to make life better for their kids. It was in a nutshell why they immigrated in the first place - not to improve their own lives. 2) It's the responsibility of the kids to care for their parents. The idea of nursing homes is so foreign and repulsive to my parents (and myself for that matter).

This is a generalization but, from my experience, that's baked into eastern culture across classes.

So I disagree about the distinction, I have many Indian and Chinese friends who have no obligation to take care of their parents (admittedly from middle class backgrounds). And then I have two good friends who are American of long ago European descent who definitely help their parents out with the bills extensively.

To answer your question though, I've seen it as common in both eastern and western families of means to not be expected to take care of your parents as much.

Heh, my reply is essentially the opposite of yours.

Your comment at the end made me think of a story I read a while back.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ANormalDayInRussia/comments/9sbeqy/...

While the story doesn't mention an "obligation" of the elder generation's children, I think it brings out a very interesting point. Unlike the US/ Western Europe, in Russia, and likely other previously-Soviet countries, there isn't a noticeable divide between those with rich parents and those without. No one has rich parents.

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