If a parent considers their job strictly to give life with no regards to the quality of that life then is it really morally wrong for the child to assume their job is strictly living with no regards to the quality of satisfaction a parent desires?
Is school out for summer already?
Anyway, the hypothetical is unanswerable as written. Do you have examples of what you mean? Please clarify the “their job strictly” parts of the question especially.
Both, the parent and the child should treat each other with mutual respect.
But the child should realize that their is a hierarchy, with the parents being at the top of that chain. The child should also realize, should the parent choose to use their position to settle a disagreement between the parent and child, that, in itself, is NOT a show of disrespect towards the child. And such acts do NOT give the child justifiable means to disrespect the parent.
Well, if someone anonymously donates sperm, I daresay they’ve “given life” with no further input regarding its quality, so the resulting child is under no obligation to care about the opinions of the donor.
Of course once the child is an adult, this obligation is mooted anyway.
Title edited for a certain level of clarity.
Children are not responsible for their parents at any time. That’s the way it is. Good parents will raise good children who will care about their parents, but the children are under no obligation to do so. Parents should keep this in mind before they have children, when they are raising them, and after they’re grown.
Well, I dunno. Obviously moral rules can’t be stated in absolute terms like laws of nature, but “honour thy father and thy mother” is fairly deeply rooted in Western culture, and we have also inherited a strong concept of filial duty from our Greek and Roman forbears. So while you personally may reject this notion, our society generally tends to accept it.
But, if I’m reading the OP correctly, he’s not asking about whether he has a general obligation to respect his parents, or even a specific obligation to be “responsible” for his parents in the sense of providing for either their material or emotional needs. He asks whether a child can “assume their job is strictly living with no regards to the quality of satisfaction a parent desires”. I think he’s asking whether we have a duty to live our own lives in the way that our parents would wish us to (or whether our children have a duty to live their lives as we would wish them to). Do we have to try, in our own lives, to meet the aspirations that our parents have for us?
I disagree to some extent. There is certainly some cultural belief in this notion, and it is more ingrained in other cultures. But in modern society this is seen differently from the biblical notion. I don’t think you’ll find many people who would expect children to honor abusive parents, or to take responsibility for their parents failings. We do expect some level of gratitude for our parents for demonstrated sacrifice, but parents who expect something from their children just for giving birth to them seem whiny.
I can’t speak for others, but I consider it unbecoming for parents to feel their children are obligated to them.
I would simply say no. Children have no say in their circumstances until they reach adulthood and then have every right to live their own lives as they see fit.
None of this means that children should not recognize the sacrifices of their parents or ignore their good lessons, but children must be true to themselves. Before adulthood children have little choice in our society but to live under the rules of their parents, but as adults we consider them responsible for their own lives.
Let’s not forget that parents expectations for their children can be downright evil. We don’t have a way to establish a principle of honoring parents when they are right and ignoring them when they are wrong, the responsibility for our actions shifts entirely to ourselves as adults.
Well, I take your point, but the OP isn’t asking what his parents should or should not feel; he’s asking what he should feel. And I don’t think we generally regard it as “unbecoming” for (adult) children to feel obligations towards their parents; we regard it as normal and fitting, and if it’s not present we look for some factor (like abusive or incompetent parenting) to explain why it’s not.
On the whole, I agree. An adult has to reconcile their moral obligations towards their parents with other moral obligations, including the obligation to be authentic and responsible for oneself and, well, adult. Respecting your parents doesn’t require to to be straight, say, because they want you to be straight, or to become an accountant rather than a conceptual artist because that is the profession they want you to choose.
I was saying that it’s unbecoming for parents to feel their children are obligated to them. It is quite the opposite for the children though, we do feel they should feel an obligation to their parents.
There are certainly social pressures to take care of your parents, in some places even to a much larger extend than in the west.
And though they’re not well-known, there are some filial responsibility laws in the US, requiring children to financially support their parents if the parents are indigent. I think Pennsylvania is the only state where they’re really used in any widespread manner, usually from nursing homes trying to collect from their residents’ children. So it’s not just a moral issue, but can be a legal one as well.