Do your adult kids owe you contact?

[Santee]

I’ve been thinking about this a lot amid the Beckham threads.

If you are a parent of adult children and you believe you have them a good, balanced upbringing and you were involved in their life, do you believe they owe you a relationship?

I’m NC with my Mum and that wasn’t a hard decision as she has been awful and abusive to me. However she would absolutely deny this until her last breath. I genuinely believe she believes she gave me the upbringing I listed above.

I don’t think I owe her anything due to her behaviour, however I don’t think I’d owe her anything regardless of this. But I’m not sure if my upbringing has warped my perception of an adult/parent relationship. So I was wondering if you think your children owe you a relationship because you raised them?

@Tunnocksmilkchocolatemallow knows perfectly well parents (who choose to be) have a duty of care towards their babies. They are being deliberately provocative in trying to equate parental care as the same as baby care. It isn’t the same. That doesn’t mean the elderly don’t deserve care from their adult children, but it is simply not the same, there are very different emotions involved. If they can’t or won’t see that then that’s their problem.

I think you’re getting tedious now.

Also paired with the facts:

Adult children did not cause their parents’ existence

Adult parents are not inherently dependent

Any dependency that arise later is usually due to aging or illness, not something the child caused

There are other agents (the parent themselves, savings, insurance,) that a baby didn’t have chance to do

So the symmetry just isn’t there.

I can't answer your question but for a different perspective, I went the other way. Went from no contact to minimal contact. I was in my early twenties when I went no contact and at the time it was the right decision for me and I have no regrets. I have my own kids now and for their sake have made introductions and they get to see their grandparents once or twice a year. I'm older now and I understand more why my parents were the way they were and their own challenges but despite that, I have a longing for a better childhood and can't forgive them completely. Our relationship is a lot better now but I would rather it be minimal and on my own term. They are pretty good grandparents (not great but pretty good), and I think they've changed a lot too so if my kids want more contact with them when they get older I'm not going to stop that.

Exactly. That poster is becoming very tedious in their insistence that child care and adult care are the same thing. I suspect they may have adult children who don’t want to be their carer.

My parents were utter shit but they were my family and I cared for them until the end. That's what family is for.

I don't think anyone owes anyone anything. If you have a poor relationship, that's that.

I thought it was pretty obvious given my earlier posts! If we take away ‘choice to have them’ (which itself doesn’t seem much of an argument) there doesn’t seem to be a good argument why we should care for children but not parents. And by care for our parents, I don’t mean we have to move our parents in - I mean ensuring their needs are met by someone/somehow. And surely society’s responsibilities are just an extension of our own? We pay for care for others because we feel that we ‘owe’ them something?

As for relationships - we have a relationship with our parents regardless. If could be a good relationship, or a bad relationship. Even going no contact is a type of relationship - it is very definitely not a neutral stance.

'Owe' is the wrong word. Family is family, you are not random strangers who choose each other as friends that come and go, you are bound by blood. Rather than going NC lightly, it's a relationship worth working on (from both sides) to try and salvage. Unless the parents are truly toxic, you may be young now and may find it hard to imagine, but one day your parents will not be with you, and you may regret it.

Then why couldn’t you have just laid it out honestly instead of pulling stupid, tedious mind games. Anyway didn’t take too long to see through the nonsense.

I think most people have said they don’t feel their kids owe them, not they don’t give a shit about their own parents.

Yet you couldn’t articulate why not? You are very wrong about my situation too. I am caring for two sets of parents. I see enough elder neglect that there is no way I would want any of them just left to social services to care for. I don’t particularly like my MIL but she is family.

As for my DC, no she won’t be caring for me when I am elderly. I am however worried by the level of selfishness on this thread and how that might translate into how society cares for her when I die.

It does get a bit weird when we start talking about family relationships in terms of whether we owe our parents or not.

My DM has just been diagnosed with dementia. I am doing all I can for her, visiting her, shopping for her, attending appointments with her, housework, contacting agencies in order to place her in a nursing home, dealing with her finances and when she is in a nursing home, I will continue with any care she needs. When she dies I will arrange her funeral amd execute her will.

Do I owe her this? Of course I don’t. That must be clearly obvious.

The fundamental question is does one have a good relationship with their parents. If they do, caring for them in old age is a natural thing to do, hard as it may become. It gives their elderly parent dignity, love and security.

Now if one does not have a good relationship with their parents, of course they would not do the above. I can understand that this situation may cause pain, feelings of guilt and even anger. But those feelings have been consistent of the relationship throughout one’s life, and have resulted in the AC not wanting to and not caring for elderly parents.

Why the guilt, anger, pain and a whole myriad of feelings? Maybe because as humans we are evolutionary programmed to care for our pack. The pack has a stronger chance of survival and procreation if we care for our sick and elderly.
The elderly, then do provide a further service of looking after the young ones while the productive ones provide for all. But we don’t live in a world like that anymore. The family will become a rare
thing going forward. We are all individuals now!

I wasn’t paying mind games. I was asked why children are different and people chose to be outraged at my question rather than answer it.

No, not really.

My dad is a wonderful man who has done a lot for me, and I'm very willing to look after him when he gets old, to the best of my abilities. Maybe I do owe it to him in some sense, but I love him and that's the main reason. My siblings all live abroad so I know it'll be mainly down to me, and I'm okay with that.

My mother was an abusive addict when I was young and continued to be nasty to me in adult life whenever I let her back in. I've been NC with her now for years and I don't feel I owe her anything. I wouldn't care for her or pay for her care.

People who had two parents like my father, or two parents like my mother, might struggle to see the other perspective. I don't think you owe your parents anything just for being your parents. I do think that if they were generally good parents (nobody's perfect) then staying in contact (and looking after them if they need it, and if you're able to) is a morally good thing to do.

So I still don’t really understand what you’re getting at. Have the majority of posters said they don’t care about the welfare of their parents?

I agree. Owe is completely the wrong word- its negative and transactional.

I owed my parents nothing but I chose to see them regularly because I loved them and we support each other as I presume most loving families do.

The majority of people wouldn't go NC with their parents unless there was a genuine reason. The only circumstances I can see this happening barring genuine parental abuse is if the adult children had mental health issues in which case its not about owing, its about them needing support.

A lot have said they don’t owe them anything. ‘Anything’ includes care.

Why are people comparing caring for children to caring for parents? they are completely different.

When you have children you make a life choice to look after them as it's part of being a parent. It's your personal responsibility that goes along with that choice.

Noone asks to be born and noone makes that choice therefore noone owes their parent care because they didnt have a say in the matter.

And I will add, that it is my absolute duty to care for myself and my health while I am alive. By making good lifestyle choices, that may prevent me for acquiring some of the conditions and illnesses that come with old age and are avoidable. That choke up the NHS, that prevent us from working until retirement age and create the need for us to be cared for overly be our AC and the state.

I have the most wonderful relationship with my DD. She will not have to look after me until I am on my last legs, if I have anything to do with it. I know there are no guarantees but that does not mean I sit back and do nothing until I reach the point where I can do nothing and live for another 10/15 years on meds in that state. I cared for my darling DGMa and now I am going back in there with my DM. Hopefully I will break the cycle.

When I read threads like this, I despair. What broke our families in this way?

I am reduced contact with mine and she lives across the road. I do not like her as a person at all but she thinks she is great and should be thought amazing... I have been in therapy for my upbringing and she has actually been such a neglectful grandmother also. I let her come visit the kids one day a week. She has a habit of winding me up. I will not justify why she is bad for me here but just know its not your fault if you have a toxic mother.

If my children went NC with me I would be really depressed and I would probably dedicate the rest of my life to ensuring they have something to inherit. I’ve met a few people who are NC with their parents and it’s rough for them, it’s not something people do on a whim and if my kids thought I’d fucked up that much id be devastated and want to do what I could to help them in the only way I can. They owe me nothing (apart form a Mother’s Day card) but I do owe them something.

I think the only people who ask this question are people who found life tough. I had everyone tell me how great I was doing as much as I did when one of my parents were really sick, I was like but they did everything for me, dropped what they were doing literally time and time again for me growing up. Why wouldn’t I have done the same when they needed me? But I honestly had the best parents

No, though I think to a degree parents owe their children, adult or not, a degree of effort and commitment that doesn’t apply the other way around. I brought my children into this world and created their lives for the first 18 years of their life. I have a responsibility to them that isn’t wholly reciprocal, though I’ve been a good and accountable parent, so I hope it would be.

Thinking about the parents I know who are close to their adult children and spend a lot of time with them, compared to the ones who have distant, obligatory relationships and the ones who are estranged, it’s crystal clear why the ones who have close relationships with their children have children who want to spend a lot of time with them. They are warm, loving, open minded people who have been accountable for their failures, worked to put things right when they made mistakes, are kind and supportive and respectful, value their children as individuals, cheer on their accomplishments, provide support without being overbearing and are just fun to be around.

The ones without good relationships are, if I were to generalise, judgemental, cruel, manipulative, always blame everyone else when they do something wrong, quick to anger, miserable, not fun to be around and/or have a very me, me, me attitude at the expense of their children. You can’t be cruel and absent for a good part of 18 years and then expect anyone to come flocking to you in your older age simply because you gave them life.

I don’t think they ‘owe’ it but I would be absolutely heartbroken if they didn’t want to spend some time with us, other than when they want something.