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Comment by sneak | Hacker News Reader

> Supporting your parents financially is just part of life for a lot of people, some even get a lot of happiness out of it.

Yeah, lots of people find happiness in things done with consent. Those same people find unhappiness, resentment, and anger when those same things are done without consent.

Consent matters!

Children are not born owing their parents anything.

This take is disgusting, frankly, because it ignores the core issue: that it was nonconsensual. It would be like commenting on a marital rape story "but many wives love having sex with their husband!"

The article says that this child is considering cutting off all contact with her parents when she turns 18 and can move out. Does that sound like happiness to you?

Monetize your kids at your own risk.

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> Children are not born owing their parents anything.

Yes they are. That is the function of children with respect to parents in the circle of life, just as it is the function of parents to care for children. Not all obligations are ones you voluntarily undertake.

Of course there are boundaries to the scope of that obligation. But those are defined by society, not "consent." The problem in Claire's story is that the parents are perfectly capable of working but choose to burden her instead.

More importantly, assuming that children are born owing their parents anything leads to deeply unhealthy societal outcomes:

- This enables abusive parenting styles and forces adult children to need to unlearn this lie in order to come to terms with their abuse;

- This enables parents having an outsized influence on adult children, such as controlling their sexuality, interests, physical location, etc;

Frankly: the parents have an obligation to care for their children because they generally chose to have children or chose to keep them once they were had. The child did not choose to be born and does not have a choice on the quality of their parentage. It's unacceptable to then place the burden on the child for choices they didn't make and have no control over.

Nobody chooses to be born. Does that mean that there are no moral obligations that arise by virtue of one’s existence as a human? Can obligations only arise from voluntary choice?

“Choice” is not the be-all end-all of morality (or, really, even particularly important). The obligation for parents to care for their children and vice versa arises from the nature of people and the nature of the relationship. Parents have an obligation to care for children even when they didn’t choose to have children. Conversely, children have an obligation to care for parents even though they didn’t choose to be born.

> Parents have an obligation to care for children even when they didn’t choose to have children.

People who didn't choose to have children are not called parents.

> Conversely, children have an obligation to care for parents even though they didn’t choose to be born.

You've offered nothing to support this supposed (but not really) symmetry. This seems like back-rationalization of some cultural norm or tradition (especially when coupled with your anti-individualism swipes in the other comment).

Perhaps your beliefs are not as preordained as you may believe.

Thank you for sharing your opinions and belief systems with us, no matter how peculiar.

This isn't and one off believe system. It's strongly prevalent in most non western countries and was prevalent in western countries for a long time before now. We're the outlier not him.

"Parents who expect gratitude from their children (there are even some who insist on it) are like usurers," says Kafka in his 1914-1923 diaries.

Bad parenting is like water flowing, it doesn't need any particular justification in order to be enabled and find a way to manifest itself

Going into parenthood with that mentality is a surefire way of making sure the children won't care at all about that "obligation".

People take care of their families because of a bond that has nothing to do with blood. That bond is uniquely about mutual feelings and as a parent we have only a few years to make that bond last a lifetime.

If it's formed on top of obligations and resentment it'll break the first chance it gets. Just take a look at one of the kids in the article: she probably had a great life materially, but the minute she turns 18 she's willing to never talk to her parents ever again.

Only in societies, like certain parts of America, beset with pathological levels of individualism. In healthy societies, that obligation generally doesn’t lead to resentment because (1) it’s a mutual and reciprocal obligation; and (2) people understand that they have roles and obligations that arise by virtue of their very existence as a human being.

To be clear, in this particular example the parents are breaching their side of the obligation by burdening their kid while they’re still healthy and able to work.

No. The reciprocal obligation that people have, having been taken care of as children, is that they take care of their own children in turn.

Parents are adults who can and should care for themselves. You aren't born into debt.

To expect both your parents, as well as your children, to be responsible to you at both ends of your life is selfish and entitled.

I'd advise against judging health of personal interaction in a society based on interactions between parents and children. Calling one healthy over the other has many issues.

Just one example: in India people help one's families to a huge extent. But kids are also brought up under heavy use of corporal punishment and there's a high degree of family involvement in children's affairs, such as dictating career choices and marriage. Is that a healthier society?

If societal pressure is the only reason why people take care of their families, what's the point? So I don't find it individualistic if someone does not feel obliged to help, it's much more complex than that. There should be more between a parent and child than obligation and well-defined roles. I help my family because I love them, because they raised me to love them, not solely because they're my ancestors.

> Just one example: in India people help one's families to a huge extent. But kids are also brought up under heavy use of corporal punishment and there's a high degree of family involvement in children's affairs, such as dictating career choices and marriage. Is that a healthier society?

Yes. If an Indian village raises their kids the way Americans do everyone would die of starvation.

Sounds like a tidy solution to the human rights violation that is arranged marriage, and the closely associated tradition of honor killings, the murder of a woman by her immediate family for refusing to submit herself sexually to those chosen by her family for her.

The idea that someone could hold such cultures up as an ideal is literally insane to me.

It seems to me that these systems stem from the basic concept that women and children are the personal inanimate property of their family unit, to be disposed of however the family wishes, like a used car or a plot of land. The idea that this is healthy or normal appears to be a rationalization and not rooted in any basis besides tradition.

> It seems to me that these systems stem from the basic concept that women and children

It's more about having a narrower sense of the scope of the individual relative to the collective and the relevance of individual choice. Both facilitated marriages and parents' involvement in career choices arise from the quite sound premises that (1) young people are bad at making decisions and can benefit from the acquired and collective wisdom of the family; and (2) that people have a moral obligation to perpetuate society and support families, and fulfilling those obligations isn't about individual choice. (Note that both principles apply equally to men and women.)

For a lot of Indians Arranged Marriage tends to more like introductions from friends except you replace friends with your family.

No one forced my Mother to marry my Father. There was a period where they just talked and got to know each other. She could have said no. Nor did she have to compromise on her career. It was not a business transaction where my Father went to a supermarket to get one wife to cook and bear sons.

It looks like you've read about an Arranged marriage that went bad in a news article and seem to have decided that you know all that's there to it.

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