Your children are not obligated to repay you.
by Kyeli on May 8th, 2009 @ 9:23 am in
How To Be Awesome
Recently, I had a discussion with my friend Liz. Her brother Marc and his wife Tammy had adopted Tammy’s nephew after his mother died and his father wound up in prison. Tammy’s nephew, Paul, had been living with them for three years now, and had “come a long way”. Seems he’d been something of a bad seed in the beginning, but had straightened out and was pretty good now.
That was all fine and well, but then Liz complained about how awful Paul’s room always looked. Dirty and messy. She said, “He needs to be more grateful. Without my brother’s help, who knows where he would’ve wound up.”
I blew up.
Paul didn’t ask to be adopted. He didn’t want his mother to die. He didn’t help his father land in prison. He was 11 years old and lost both parents and his brother (his brother’s also in prison). Yes, it’s true that Marc and Tammy did a good thing by taking him in. But doing a good thing, even one that’s as substantial as to provide for someone for years, needs to be selfless… or at least obligation-free.
Our children don’t ask to be born. We choose to have them, and then heap gobs of crap and obligation and fear and issues on them from day one. Our children deserve better than most of them get, frankly. And then we sit around and blink and wonder why our teenagers rebel and hate us so much!
Kids aren’t possessions. They’re not pets or playthings. They’re not meant to be groomed in our image. They’re not meant to be trained or tormented. They’re not meant to spend their entire lives struggling to get out from under our thumbs. They’re not meant to follow in our footsteps or do what we never got to do when we were kids. They’re not meant to be taken for granted. They’re not meant to be punished, yelled at, bullied, or abused. They’re not meant to earn our love or prove themselves worthy to us.
They deserve unconditional love and support and freedom to be themselves. They’re meant to learn rapidly and grow like weeds. They’re meant to explore their world, to use their senses and push their edges and fall and get back up. They’re precious.
And eventually, they grow into parents. And the cycle starts over.
Your children are not obligated to repay you, but eventually, they will. You get to choose the method of payment, you get to influence that most vital of cycles.
What cycle do you want to encourage?
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- We hurt ourselves when we hurt others.
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16 Comments!
#2 Posted by 
Kristina B on May 8th, 2009 2:01 pm | link
And by “right” i meant “wright.” Talk about a Freudian slip. :)
#3 Posted by 
Hayden Tompkins on May 8th, 2009 2:29 pm | link
“Kids aren’t possessions. …They’re not meant to follow in our footsteps or do what we never got to do when we were kids. They’re not meant to be taken for granted…They’re not meant to earn our love or prove themselves worthy to us.”
Yes, Kyeli, YES. I am clapping my hands and nodding and cheering, and so very happy that you stood up for Paul. We do some of our worst stuff when we believe we are “saving” someone.
#4 Posted by 
JoVE on May 8th, 2009 7:24 pm | link
Excellent post. Just excellent. Your own kid is very lucky to have you for a mom.
#5 Posted by 
Green on May 9th, 2009 12:33 am | link
I don’t know that I agree with this. Maybe I do and I just don’t agree with the wording. I do agree that taking care of someone doesn’t mean they owe you their life, or that if Marc hadn’t taken Paul in that Paul wouldn’t have landed in a just-as-good situation elsewhere. But there’s a line that you draw in “I owe you nothing” that makes it seem as if kids are just entitled to everything they get. I DO disagree with cultivating fear and obligation- but I also feel that I owe my mother a great deal because she’s looked out for me for so long. Maybe it’s just love that does that, but I think she does deserve offspring that take care of her, or at least care about her. She’s taken care of us for many years. If she needs us, we should be there for her because we love her, AND because there’s a balance that we need to maintain and respect. If I just shrugged my shoulders and said “I don’t give a hoot about what you want and need” what kind of relationship are we going to have? Not a good one.
There’s a responsibility to treat your parents well if they’ve done well by you. There has to be. Now, I know parents whose children owe them nothing, because the parents treated them badly. But like any relationships you can have, you need to treat people well, especially the people you spend the majority of your time with.
Maybe they’re not obligated to “repay” you. But if you’re treating them well, then they should want to.
#6 Posted by 
Elly on May 9th, 2009 2:15 am | link
May have a fuller reaction when I’m not about to go to bed, but had to say: *purrs loudly* I fully, 110% support this sentiment, and very much agree with you!
#7 Posted by 
John Haydon on May 9th, 2009 12:06 pm | link
It takes a huge heart to be selfless. Parents who adopt have such an amazing mission to engender this selflessness into their adopted children. You can’t measure that impact!
Thanks, Kyeli!
#8 Posted by 
Ben D. on May 9th, 2009 2:27 pm | link
@Green, you said “There’s a responsibility to treat your parents well if they’ve done well by you. There has to be. Now, I know parents whose children owe them nothing, because the parents treated them badly.”
I’m not on board with the quid-pro-quo idea. I would rather say “I have a responsibility to treat my parents well because they’re my parents”. Period. Really the same point as the OP’s but in reverse.
Granted it’s a little different, because, as the OP pointed out, children don’t ask to be born. So parents have an extra-special duty to their children because they frigging brought them into the world.
But it seems like just about every culture has a tradition of filial piety. I think it’s fair to say that we all have an unconditional duty to our parents because, after all, they frigging brought us into the world.
#9 Posted by Green on May 9th, 2009 5:27 pm | link
@Ben That’s very true. It’s a very intuitive thing that I don’t know how to explain in words. But anyone takes care of me, listens to me, feeds me, loves me and encourages me for 20 years, and I’m sure as heck gonna feel that I owe them something… at the very least love and respect. Multiply that by the fact that they did all this taking care of me during a 2-5 year period when I was totally helpless? Yeah, I think I owe them a hug and a nice word.
Children don’t ask to be born but some parents don’t ask to be parents. And I just don’t mean through surprise pregnancy. It happens through family fatalities, falling in love with single parent, ect. I don’t think you owe these people anymore than you do someone that chose you, but as I said earlier- if someone takes care of you and parents you for a number of years and you don’t feel like you at least owe them respect… there’s something deeper in that situation that needs examining.
I’m also gonna take a minute to say that the cleanliness of a kid’s room is a crappy way to tell if they appreciate your presence in their life. Now if he’s smashing his toys with hammers and pouring jelly on piles of clothes, that’s ungrateful. And weird. But I don’t see how someone’s adoptive aunt should be passing judgment on a kid’s messy habits.. unless there’s more to it than that. In that respect I think I’d have told her she was overreacting.
#10 Posted by 
Geek's Dream Girl on May 10th, 2009 11:55 pm | link
This is exactly why my mother and I don’t speak anymore.
She sees her children as a means to pay for her retirement and even tried to push me into getting my degree in Pharmacy for the reason: “Then you can pay for my retirement.” My brother and I got tired of her trying to run our lives, so we unplugged. Let me tell you, we’re both WAY HAPPIER without her. It drives me nuts when people pull the “She’s your mother, you’ll regret it when she’s not around anymore” card. Unless you know how I grew up, the way our relationship poisoned me, then you have no right to tell me that I *have* to have a relationship with my mother.
Parents: Your children don’t belong to you. You are responsible for raising them in a way that makes them well-rounded, critical thinkers and ethical human beings. Beyond that, everything is their choice because it’s their life. :-)
Geek’s Dream Girl’s last blog post..Top 5 Reasons I Want To Date Wolverine
#11 Posted by 
Ealasaid on May 11th, 2009 1:45 pm | link
I’m checking out the site for the first time and I was nodding my head and muttering “rock on!” til I got to this part of the above post: “And eventually, they grow into parents. And the cycle starts over.”
Admittedly, the post was clearly directed at parents, but come on, loads of people choose not to reproduce or adopt — and some of your childed readers’ kids will be in that group. I’m disappointed to see such a mainstream assumption (ie, that everyone will have kids) in an ostensibly freak-oriented blog.
#12 Posted by 
Kyeli on May 11th, 2009 1:50 pm | link
@Ealasaid: You’re right. I was talking to the parents in our audience, since those are the ones who will treat their children one way or another – and that was the cycle I was discussing here, since if you’re not a parent, you won’t treat your kid as an obligation. I’m not sure how I could have worded that better given my point.
But thank you for bringing up willingly child-free people. I’m fully aware of them, know many, and meant no offense.
#13 Posted by 
Nathalie Lussier on May 12th, 2009 12:52 pm | link
Wow, just wow. I agree! I felt myself in a lot of the words you wrote, as the child. I’m not a parent yet, but this short post is enough to influence the way I will look at and think about my future children!
Thank you, you rock! :)
Nathalie Lussier’s last blog post..Gratitude Monday #6: Baby Everything Edition!
#14 Posted by 
Sarah Marie Lacy on May 22nd, 2009 9:40 am | link
Oh boyyy, did this ever strike a chord with me. I get really wound up about this too, especially since I still live at home.
You do not have kids to raise the next Martha Stewart. You do not have kids to have someone else to take your problems out on. And if you do?
Your kids owe you nothing. Anything they owe is to themselves, and that’s the journey to figure out who they really are.
Sarah xoxo
Sarah Marie Lacy’s last blog post..Interactions with a Clutter Monster.
#15 Posted by Two Gifts of Unrequited Love on May 26th, 2009 1:18 pm | link
[...] loving parents consciously bring a child into this world, they don’t see their child as being obligated to repay them. They brought their child into this world unconditionally, wanting the best for their child — [...]
#1 Posted by
Kristina B on May 8th, 2009 2:01 pm | link
Yes, thank you, and happy mother’s day to someone who has (in my not-so-humble opinion) the exact right attitude about parenting. You should right a Usual Error style book about parenting and then, honestly, everyone that doesn’t read it should be sterilized. I know that sounds harsh, but boy do I think the world would be a better place if everyone followed the advice in this post.
(I will now stop talking like an extremist, which I am not really, but your post struck a chord with me.)