A debt to parents?

Where I come from, being a parent is considered the most respectful and prestigious position. No matter what one did, a child would always owe their life to their parents. In the Hindu manuscript Manusmriti, parents are given the highest importance even over a religious teacher.

Of course, they are the ones who taught you everything, and actually moulded you into a person you are right now. Your mom especially carried you for 9 months, just so that you could come into this world! And what sacrifices have they not made to keep you happy!

This means we owe them our life, and everything we can do to keep them happy, we must. Right?

American philosopher Jane English does not think so. She says that children do not owe their parents anything. In fact, the parents are the ones who incurred a responsibility by deciding to bring a life into this world. Therefore, any sacrifices made by the parents for their children actually is a consequence to their decision of bearing a child.

Now some of you definitively think this is rude and cruel towards the parents, but Jane English gives an alternative theory called the Friendship Theory. In her research paper she says, “Although I agree that there are many things that children ought to do for their parents, I will argue that it is inappropriate and misleading to describe them as things “owed.” I will maintain that parents’ voluntary sacrifices, rather than creating “debts” to be “repaid,” tend to create love or “friendship.”"

To understand better what English meant, here's a breakdown on what our conventional view is. There are two ways people look at parent-children relationship today:

The Unconditional View

This states that your love towards your parents needs to be unconditional, as anything they do is a wiser decision of what we could've done ourselves at that age. We need to cater to every need of our parents, and follow their advice until one of you dies.

The Conditional View

This states that your love towards your parents must reflect upon what they have provided while rearing you. Great parents should be treated with love and affection while terrible parents must be treated the way they did.

Jane English found a problem with both these views. Therefore, she introduced a new take on it.

The Friendship View

This states that after a certain age, your parents stop becoming a caregiver/provider and turn into a friend. As for all our friends, we do not owe them for a favour for the rest of our lives. Neither do we feel obligated to be nice to them. However, if they are providing a place to stay and helping you in certain aspects, we return the favour in kind by helping them out with other things.

After reading this, you might think this is the way to go. However, there has been some criticism to to this theory as well. New Zealand philosopher, Simon Keller is the most vocal critic on this theory. In his book titled 'The Limits of Loyalty', he stated “You cannot explain your failure to look after your parents by saying, ‘Look, they’re great people, and I’ll always value the times when we were close, but over the years we’ve taken different paths. I went my way, they went theirs, it seemed like the relationship wasn’t taking us where we wanted to go . . . things just aren’t the way they were.’ You are stuck with your filial duties, in a way that you are not stuck with your duties of friendship.”

If you think about it, he is right. We certainly cannot treat our parents as friends, as there is an involuntary dependency you have on your parents, and your parents have on you.

Let us know in the comments below, which of the views you support and if not, you have a different philosophy altogether in this aspect.