The parents gave the child life and eighteen years’ worth of food, clothing, and shelter. How are you saying the parents owe the child at that point? Shouldn’t the child be in debt to the parents?
That was the classical Roman system. The senior male member of the family was the Patriarch. Both culturally and legally, he ruled the family including his adult children. He even theoretically had the right to kill anyone in his family who disobeyed him (although this was not normally invoked).
So you had situation where grown men in their forties and fifties were not considered to be full adults or have full legal rights because their fathers were still alive.
True. But someday you get to die. So that’s something to look forward to.
When I was on Site Council at our high school I was surprised by how many parents kicked their kids out at 18. In my neighborhood I doubt it was because they couldn’t afford them. But the OP is talking unlimited, not until they have the skills and education to go on their own.
There is taking your kids back when they got laid off from work, or divorced, or something like that, and taking them back because they don’t feel like standing on their own two feet. Any kid who moves back should have a plan on leaving again, and should support the house. There do seem to be sponge kids who don’t want to take the risk of getting out there, and it is a service to those kids to kick them out eventually.
My kids are welcome to use our house for transitions, and have, but the end point is well known and they contribute in lots of ways. They both went to college far away which was great for everyone. My wife and I did also. Away college when possible is a good way of transitioning to independence.
If you ever actually were a parent, you’d wise up about this in oh, about 18 years.
That’s irrelevant. It posits a “we” which didn’t exist at that moment. By that reasoning, there must be an infinite number of "we"s who do want to be born, and it would be to one of those to whom everyone gives birth. I’m sure that probably is a concept that’s hard to grasp.
You absolutely do have a say in this matter. Anyone who resents being alive has the obvious path to correct the situation. So life is not an insurmountable burden you can’t put down.
And that’s the central pillar of your argument; without it, the rest of it crumbles. If being given life was not a debt other people owe you for then the next step is to look at the material objects. And the amount of material possessions a parent gives a child is far higher than the child ever gives back. So the parents don’t owe the child; the child owes the parents.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but if the OP is convinced life is such a burden and one to which consent is not given…why is he here?
Mods, I’m not saying this in a ‘kill yourself, OP!’ offensive sense, but pointing out (I hope) an observation.
But the whole consent thing is silly anyway.
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You can’t have it both ways. You can’t say that your parents are responsible for you, in perpetuity, because you are their responsibility, AND say that you should also be afforded the status and privileges of an adult. Pick the one you want, and if you chose to require your parents eternally support you, be prepared to be treated like an 8 year old. Because THAT was your choice, even if being born wasn’t.
Bravo. That’s YOUR opinion, which is not shared by the majority of humanity.
No, parents do not owe it to their kids to be slaves for the rest of their lives. Parents owe it to their kids to give them the skills and tools to become independent adults. That includes things like giving toddlers baths even if they don’t like them, telling them to clean their rooms and, if an adult still living at home, contribute to the household like any other adult - either by helping to pay the bills or contributing some sort of labor like doing chores while the other adults are out working.
No, people would NOT “think damn long and hard” about it because people are wired to want sex and the rubbing of bits against each other feels so damn good, on top of which there’s a nine month delay between the act and the consequences.
Also, “taking responsibility” for raising a person does not mean enabling bad behavior patterns - it means preparing them to live on their own, as independent entities. Because children usually out live parents and sooner or later the kids will have to take care of themselves without help from mama and poppa.
#If you created a being then you should also be able to destroy it when you no longer need it, amirite?
I don’t think a parent who offers shelter for their adult kid for an indefinite period of time (“whenever you want to leave”) is necessarily a bad parent that is failing to teach their kid independence. I don’t think a parent who does not establish an “end point” with their boomerang adult kid is necessarily a worse parent than the one who does do this, even if I think I’d be a “end point” parent if I had kids. For instance, if I had an adult kid who seemed very much destined to a life of poverty (maybe they only seem able to land minimum wage jobs but they are carrying huge amounts of student debt that I encouraged them to take on), well, I think I’d be more concerned about getting them to contribute to the household than getting them to commit to an “end point”. And if I met a parent in this situation who expressed the sentiment that the kid could stay with them for as long as they want, I wouldn’t judge that parent as anything but kind and generous. I’m all for judging on a case-by-case basis rather than coming up with general prescriptions.
I would rephrase this by quoting Sidney Poitier’s character addressing his father in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner”:
This 30-year-old man still living with his parents doesn’t seem likely to be paying it forward anytime soon, if ever.
In fact, this Washington Post article (behind a paywall) makes him sound like a shady, creepy, narcissist:
I’m with you on the judging on a case-by-case basis. There’s a difference between a adult child who is living with his parents almost like roommates, who contributes to the household both financially and in doing the work involved maintaining the household and one who is continuing his childhood lifestyle, making either no financial contribution or a nominal one and doing only personal chores, like cleaning their room or doing their own laundry. It’s the latter case in which the parents are doing the child no favors, because eventually the parents get sick or die. I am acquainted with a couple of people who were in that situation, and it came as quite a shock to them. Suddenly, their lifestyle had to change - their parents now needed to be taken care of, so they had to go home every night after work and cook dinner rather than doing whatever they wanted after work and having dinner waiting for them whenever they got home. Siblings wouldn’t help, because they took the attitude that “They took care of you, now you take care of them”. When the parents died, they suddenly ( at 50 ish) had to find a better job, because they couldn’t pay the rent on the low-paying “dream job” they had for 30 years. They couldn’t travel as much when they got the new job (one of the reasons the old job was a “dream job”)- which was okay, because now they couldn’t afford it.
Do you realize, Marcus, that your philosophy is that of the classic “enabler”? “Enablers” actually help an individual maintain a useless/unhealthy/dangerous/unproductive lifestyle by treating that person in such a way that it is much easier for that person to maintain that kind of lifestyle. A good parent never does that. A good parent makes the tough decisions necessary to guide that person into a healthy, productive adult lifestyle because that’s what it’s all about. If you groom your child to be a useless slug who drains the resources of others, why have a child? Society would be better off without your kid.
I have a friend who discovered her daughter is an addict. Part of the process was for HER to get counseling about the whole concept of “enabling” and what to do or not do in order to avoid being one. She discovered, much to her dismay, that she unknowingly fit the description and has since made the necessary changes to help her daughter move forward as opposed to “helping” her remain what she has been.
I think you should research the whole subject of “enabling” because it is apparent to me that you just don’t grasp that very important dynamic.
Not much to add that hasn’t been said by many respondents. How common is it in other species for offspring to remain living with the extended family, with the parents continuing to provide some support other than that owed by other members of the community?
I don’t think I can recall any prior GD proposition that has been so universally rejected, with the OP continuing their support. Congrats, marcus. :smack:
Who would have thought.
I’m with doreen, **monstro **and others in that as a parent I’d feel I’m morally compelled to shelter my adult children in a time of need, or if their condition impedes independent living. And if circumstances allow it, there would be no objection to “housemate” with them in a mutually advantageous scheme of fair-share responsibilities. The whole “get out the door at 18” thing is IMO only slightly less silly than “keep them for life”.
But if you live in a dependent or semi-dependent status, “my house, my rules” is completely fair.
Is the OP of the ideological/philosophical alignment of those who simply advocate that humans should stop reproducing because it’s terrible to bring children into this world?
In the case of an adult child, any rational view of human history & human nature clearly shows that it is exactly the opposite.
In reality, what’s stunningly thoughtless and deeply cruel is encouraging your adult child to remain helpless and dependent. It’s one of the nastiest things any parent could do.
“Living in my mother’s basement creed” by Marcus Flavius.