Why is it taboo for adult children to leech off their parents, but not for parents to leech off their adult children?

[Anonymous]

Who says it isn't taboo for parents to leech off their adult children? It absolutely is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You sound like a spoiled 18-24 year old asking this.
Stats show Parents spend approx. $300,000 raising a child until age 18, plus tons more if they pay for college. That is enough.

For this, an adult child should then return the gift and help care for a parent for the last 5-10 years of their life when they become frail and need care. That’s the circle of life.

An adult age 22ish- age 60 shouldn’t need help or be leeching off anyone.

Yeah, no. Don’t CHOOSE to have kids if you don’t want to pay for them. They owe you nothing when you’re old. “Circle of life,” my ass.

DP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You sound like a spoiled 18-24 year old asking this.
Stats show Parents spend approx. $300,000 raising a child until age 18, plus tons more if they pay for college. That is enough.

For this, an adult child should then return the gift and help care for a parent for the last 5-10 years of their life when they become frail and need care. That’s the circle of life.

An adult age 22ish- age 60 shouldn’t need help or be leeching off anyone.

Ok, so you seem to think there's a clear-cut age by which should be fending for themselves. By that logic, you should also think there's clear-cut age by which one should die. It only makes sense. According to this life table, most men are dead by the age of 79 and most women are dead by the age of 84.

https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html

Therefore, by your logic, an adult child shouldn't have to care for their father if he's 79 or older, nor should they have to care for their mother if she's 84 or older, as they've passed their deadline to die.

This is some seriously faulty logic.

No, it isn’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You sound like a spoiled 18-24 year old asking this.
Stats show Parents spend approx. $300,000 raising a child until age 18, plus tons more if they pay for college. That is enough.

For this, an adult child should then return the gift and help care for a parent for the last 5-10 years of their life when they become frail and need care. That’s the circle of life.

An adult age 22ish- age 60 shouldn’t need help or be leeching off anyone.

Yeah, no. Don’t CHOOSE to have kids if you don’t want to pay for them. They owe you nothing when you’re old. “Circle of life,” my ass.

DP

NP. The circle of life is that I support my own children and raise them successfully. The last 5 years of someone's life could easily be 100k a year. Or more if I have to quit work to care for them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You sound like a spoiled 18-24 year old asking this.
Stats show Parents spend approx. $300,000 raising a child until age 18, plus tons more if they pay for college. That is enough.

For this, an adult child should then return the gift and help care for a parent for the last 5-10 years of their life when they become frail and need care. That’s the circle of life.

An adult age 22ish- age 60 shouldn’t need help or be leeching off anyone.

Yeah, no. Don’t CHOOSE to have kids if you don’t want to pay for them. They owe you nothing when you’re old. “Circle of life,” my ass.

DP

Kids can also choose to not accept any $ from parents once they are 18. They can also choose to care for parents or not. There is no legal compulsion.

[Anonymous]

After 18, any money you get from parents, is like loan, you can pay back or default. If you took similar amount from a bank, interests would be much higher and you'll have to go through bankruptcy or jail.

[Anonymous]

I've no intention to ever take a single $ from my kids even if i end up needing but after spending millions on them, if they can afford but don't offer to help if we need, it would be sad. Kind of cruel. I hope I raised better people than that.

[Anonymous]

Presumably, a healthy adult child has options and opportunities available that would allow them to be self-sustaining. So an adult child that lives at home and doesn't contribute to household expenses and responsibilities is just lazy.
But an aging parent faces a much more limited job market, especially if that parent gave up years of career and education to raise a family. Even the healthiest adult in their 60s or 70s faces more physical and cognitive challenges.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Saying this “the OP didn't ask to be born. The OP's parents chose to bring them into the world.” screams that you are an immature irrational kid and entirely self-centered.

If adults didn’t keep procreating, population would die out completely. Do you get that?
And if most parents didn’t sacrifice and try their best to raise decent human beings, the world would devolve into complete chaos.

Come back after you raise a kid or 2, or do something else giving to society, and reevaluate your ideas

How does this imply that I think I'm more important than other people?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In my own view, we are responsible for raising our own adult children to independence.

That includes teaching them to live within their means and keep their loan/CC debt to a minimum. If they do that they should not need monetary support from their aging parents.

I do not think that adult children are obligated to take in their financially insolvent parents. If they want to do that, fine. But I would never expect my kids to do that for me nor would I put them in the position of having to support me. Their focus must be on their careers, keeping a roof over their heads, their own marriages, etc.

If I ever have the need for a roommate, I'll do a Golden Girls type house share with friends.

Then thank your lucky start that you lived a very charmed and privileged life.

I support my mom because I know she would do the same for me. She grew up in a third world country, worked her ass off most of her life for very low pay. She didn't buy fancy clothes or go on fancy vacations. Most of the time it was survival mode. Where she worked and lived, the country fell apart and went to war. Took many years to have some semblance of normal. There was no 401K or saving anything. People with money obtained it illegally 90% of time time. So yes, I feel like even though I don't have to do anything, I'd feel pretty bad if I didn't.

But people in this country have hardships too. Not everyone has the ability to work a high paying job. Ask a person working 40 hours at Walmart if they can save much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Whenever a parent creates a thread complaining about adult child living with them, many of the comments are along the lines of "They're an adult. Let them hit the streets and fend for themselves." To be fair, I can kind of see where these people are coming from. The OP's of these threads have no legal obligations towards their kids, and the commenters are advising the OP to just play it cold. However, the same logic doesn't seem to apply whenever an adult child creates a thread complaining about their parents living them. Suddenly the comments are along the lines of "They're your parent. How could you even think of throwing them on the streets and letting them fend for themselves?"

In the latter situation, I do understand that people think the since the OP's parents took care of them, it's only fair for the OP to now take care of their parents. But the thing is, the OP didn't ask to be born. The OP's parents chose to bring them into the world. The OP's parents signed up for the responsibility of raising them. If they didn't want that burden, they didn't have to become parents in the first place. The OP, on the other hand, signed up for no such responsibility. I understand that family should be there for each other regardless of legal obligations(or lack thereof), but I don't understand why this is so one-sided.

It's not a question of spending money on your kids vs. your kids not asking to be born. And it's certainly not one-sided, if you see the relentless hate spewed on DCUM towards parents who refuse to buy DC a car or pay for out-of-state tuition. These are both self-serving over-simplifications.

The difference is between (1) parenting and (2) helping someone who needs help. It's simply good parenting to stop enabling/coddling your kids and to expect most ACs to fend for themselves. Some kids will leech until the spigot is cut off, and the biggest favor you can do for them is to cut off that spigot and send them on their way to making their own income and their own choices. The word "enabling" certainly doesn't get much respect on DCUM, where every parent who doesn't enable is called a narc. But enabling is real.

But some ACs struggle with executive function or other issues. And some older parents are physically or mentally incapable of living independently. Sure, there's some grey area around, for example, parents who squandered their money on cruises and now need financial help. But I can't remember a thread that criticized helping a legit struggling child or parent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Saying this “the OP didn't ask to be born. The OP's parents chose to bring them into the world.” screams that you are an immature irrational kid and entirely self-centered.

If adults didn’t keep procreating, population would die out completely. Do you get that?
And if most parents didn’t sacrifice and try their best to raise decent human beings, the world would devolve into complete chaos.

Come back after you raise a kid or 2, or do something else giving to society, and reevaluate your ideas

How does this imply that I think I'm more important than other people?

DP. Because you clearly expect a shower of money and self-sacrifice to be poured down on your head. If that's how relationships worked, nobody would be in a relationship.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who says it isn't taboo for parents to leech off their adult children? It absolutely is.

+1. This certainly isn't true on DCUM, where it seems like every day there's a new thread hating on somebody's parents for being needy "narcs." This just seems like yet another way for OP to be aggrieved about parents in general.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Saying this “the OP didn't ask to be born. The OP's parents chose to bring them into the world.” screams that you are an immature irrational kid and entirely self-centered.

If adults didn’t keep procreating, population would die out completely. Do you get that?
And if most parents didn’t sacrifice and try their best to raise decent human beings, the world would devolve into complete chaos.

Come back after you raise a kid or 2, or do something else giving to society, and reevaluate your ideas

Why would be wrong humans going extinct? Maybe that would be a good thing. We're destroying the planet as I type.

Exactly. 8 billion elope. Ridiculous for anyone to have more than one child. I birthed one and adopted 2 from overseas. I care about our earth.

Doncha just love these liberals/ environmentalists who dare to birth 2 or more children? And then they drive SUVs? Demand homes greater than 2K square feet? So much more...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You sound like a spoiled 18-24 year old asking this.
Stats show Parents spend approx. $300,000 raising a child until age 18, plus tons more if they pay for college. That is enough.

For this, an adult child should then return the gift and help care for a parent for the last 5-10 years of their life when they become frail and need care. That’s the circle of life.

An adult age 22ish- age 60 shouldn’t need help or be leeching off anyone.

I understand both arguments on their own. What I don't understand is the double standard. I don't understand why people support the "you have a moral obligation to help a family member in need even if you don't have any legal obligations towards them" argument when an adult child has a parent in need, but not when a parent has an adult child in need. Either you agree with the argument in quotes or you don't.