[blep_]

You don't know other people's life situations, even if you know their financial situations. My family consists entirely of terrible people who don't deserve my help. Any success I have is despite them, not because of them.

But even for people for whom that's not the case, you do not get to impose your morals on them. The idea of owing your parents anything more than you owe the rest of society is a nonsensical social construct that is thankfully dying out.

[DoYOuGiveMoney]

My parents were abusive and negligent towards me though they have tried gaslighting my childhood. I don't gift out of a sense of duty but for my own conscience. My father is elderly, my mother is not in the best health, and I realize my time with them is short.

[roland35]

You’re a better person than me! My parents were also abusive and I haven’t spoken to them in years. Even just thinking about them gets me sad and upset still. No way I’d send a dollar their way!

[cudgy]

> The idea of owing your parents anything more than you owe the rest of society is a nonsensical social construct that is thankfully dying out.

In your case, my comment likely does not apply as it sounds like you were abused horribly as a child, but the statement above is an extreme perspective to take generally, given that a person’s parent(s), typically at the least, provided them with some level of care when they were infants and young children. Of course, there are rare instances of horrible abuse, but it is not endemic. Also, one cannot even exist without parents, so we owe them at least that consideration versus a random person.

Most parents sacrificed some of their future to have children and ignoring that fact is usually (except in extreme cases) reflective of selfishness and self-absorption from the increasingly entitled populations of wealthy countries.

[blep_]

> Most parents sacrificed some of their future to have children

That's a choice they made, though (and usually for selfish reasons). It's like giving someone a gift and then getting upset when they don't pay you back for it.

[cudgy]

It’s not about pay back; it’s about helping those in need that once helped you. It also sets a great example for your kids to consider if the day comes when you are old and in need.

[blep_]

> It’s not about pay back; it’s about helping those in need that once helped you.

That... is paying them back, though?

> It also sets a great example for your kids to consider if the day comes when you are old and in need.

That would be the selfish reasons I mentioned. I consider it unethical to expect this of one's children.

[flippinburgers]

I don't actually want an answer because it isn't my business but you should ask yourself: are my parents "terrible" because they hold different beliefs than my own? Or are they terrible because they did something heinous like abuse me or someone I love?

Deeming parenthood a "social construct" and deserving of no attention from the child is ... you must not have kids of your own. That is the only way to explain your current attitude.

[blep_]

I'm going to answer anyway because I can read subtext and don't like people making such assumptions about me: one of them went to jail after putting me in the hospital. The other was an extreme helicopter parent with no concept of their own identity outside of being my parent.

I do not have children of my own, and don't plan to. I think you have the causation backwards, though: this is an effect of my unusual views on families and parenting, not a cause.

(Invariably, around this point, someone snarkily tells me it's a good thing I don't have kids. I unironically agree. Most people shouldn't, and I am very much in that group.)

[flippinburgers]

I'm sorry to hear about such a negative experience. In terms of you having kids, if you were to find a partner that you love and can imagine yourself being with for life, kids are actually incredibly wonderful. Given your experience, you could give them something your parents never were able to.

I wish society didn't seem to be so quick to judge having kids as a negative thing.

[blep_]

I have a partner like that, and this is a thing we discussed very early and very much agree on. Neither of us would enjoy it, and both of us would be terrible parents, because it is very possible to severely screw something up without it being malicious. It would be bad for everyone involved.

I wish society didn't seem to be so quick to assume everyone would be happier with children. Some people legitimately are, but it is not a guarantee.

[Georgelemental]

It seems like you had pretty terrible parents. And yet it doesn't sound like you would rather not be alive. So wouldn't your life experience demonstrate that even people who would be terrible parents, should still have kids?

[blep_]

... no? I legitimately, honestly, cannot comprehend why you would think that.

Had I not been born, I wouldn't know the difference, because I wouldn't exist. That I do exist now is irrelevant, because we're talking about a hypothetical universe where that's not the case. Not being born is a fundamentally different sort of thing than being alive and then dying. (If it wasn't, everyone who can physically have a child and isn't doing so right now would be committing murder.)

Everyone involved would've been objectively better off had I not been born. Both of my parents would have been happier. Everyone around them who had to deal with the fallout would be happier.

To be absolutely clear, this is not an expression of any sort of guilt on my part - I had no input into this terrible decision, and I take no responsibility for it. But any observer would have called it an obviously bad idea, if they didn't have to dance around the psychological and social implications of saying that within earshot of the child. One of the benefits of being an adult with a fully formed brain is that I can now look at such hypotheticals objectively, without conflating them with my own self-worth.

So my past, as terrible as it was, is a sunk cost. If I spontaneously died right now, it wouldn't undo any of that, nor make me or anyone else happier. The best I can do with the situation I am currently in is to keep living, and try not to repeat the mistakes of others.

[RosanaAnaDana]

I consider one of my parents to be an objectively 'terrible' person. I don't think I 'owe' them a god damned thing. However, due to good fortune, I am a person of some means. Its trivial to me to help them out in a mild sense. I do so not out of a sense of parental homage or heritage or any of that garbage. I do so because they are a person in need and its less effort to subsidize some of their costs than it would be for me to feign love or appreciation for the their failures as a parent. However, if it wasn't them, I'd be helping someone else in a similar position. Why? Because the fact is you do owe the rest of society. The non-sense idea that has never been the case is that we are islands unto ourselves. Only pissbabies who never aged mentally past the maturity of a adolescent believe they are their own making.

[blep_]

I actually do agree with you on this one. This wasn't intended as an individualist libertarian take (most of those people would call me a communist, though I don't call myself one), so much as an anti-preferential-treatment-for-family take.

> However, if it wasn't them, I'd be helping someone else in a similar position.

Exactly. I just skip to this part. Ignoring any sort of judgement of their actions, there are many people who need help far more than my parents do, and I'd sooner give money to them.

If my parents legitimately were the most in-need people I could find, I'd have some mental gymnastics to do to justify this, but that is not the case.

[eldritch_4ier]

Sounds like you had bad parents and now for some reason want to throw out the entire institution (as if it were possible) despite the fact that for the vast majority of humans it’s an overwhelmingly positive experience (not to mention just plain biological).

It’s not even imposing morals on you. The way you’re acting goes against the way humans have acted for thousands of years. To point out that you’re most likely wrong for making that decision shouldn’t be that controversial

[em-bee]

it's not about owing my parents anything but that as their child i am responsible to take care of them.

in fact, at least in germany this responsibility is even law. if i were earning above my needs, and my parents were on social welfare, i would be legally obligated to support them. same goes for siblings and children, and possibly other close relatives.

so here society does impose its morals.

or, put differenly, i see it as me owing it to society to take care of my famyly by myself instead of relying on society to do it for me