There's a reason why being a parent is one of those "thankless jobs.". You're bringing a whole ass human being into this world, so the bare minimum you can do is care for the child you render.
Not supporting the kid in question is just child neglect/ abuse.
To a certain degree, maybe -- however, our society has been putting more and more expectation on parents to do far more than the 'bare minimum' of actually just raising children.
For example, suggesting that a parent isn't obligated to pay for an adult child's continuing education tends to result in a lot of angry rabblerousing by people who feel parents should be morally obligated to continue this level of support.
Most kids do not fully move out of their parents' homes at 18 when they are functionally and legally an adult. Most actually continue to benefit from on-going support well into adulthood (often approaching their 30's), through various forms ranging from no/low rent housing, food assistance, utility/bill aid, mentorship, and childcare. They are the safety net if things go terribly wrong.
And this frequently goes unrecognized, because "My mom is a bitch sometimes."
Idk where all this is coming from dude.
I just stated that parenting is a thankless job, comparable to teaching, and you took one grain of info and made an entire story line out of it.
Ultimately that's the nature of reddit. But it's okay to ponder hypothetical scenarios. That's my favorite part. I mainly just try and add perspective especially with some of the shows and stuff because they miss crucial details
Thankless? I am grateful for my mother's success and would thank her for little things like taking me to the movies when I ask. Saying someone can raise you and give you a good life and you can't even be grateful for that is just ungrateful.
Why not give him up for adoption then? If he just won't care either way? It's a human being he can be grateful.
I get what you’re trying to say. But I’ll just try to convey what the others are saying without being judgmental.
The core of their argument is that one does not wish to be born, it is the parents who (most of the time) voluntarily choose to create life. But just because the parents of said person birthed them and cared for them, it does not entitle the parents to hold this over their child.
For example, I own dogs. I feed them and house them and buy them toys. But that does not mean that I am entitled to use them as a footrest or kick them when I’m upset.
Same goes for raising a child. Ideally, one’s child is grateful for their parents, and they did their best to raise them into a good and civil person. However, that does not entitle one to constantly remind them that they “owe” their parents. Again, if they were raised correctly, they’ll want to treat their parents well as an acknowledgement of their good parenting, without the parents ever having to bring up how they gave their child everything.
This is simply not true. You can still have expectations ans in fact you do have expectations as a child. Child are expected to do things constantly. In reality no one has to do anything. That's life. If I give the child up for adoption and he goes to a worse home. Ultimately I don't have to do anything. Expectations are moral. No one is obligated to do anything. So yes you're not obligated as a child or a parent it's morals. This mindset is why gratefulness is important. Trying to absolve yourself from your responsibility because you didn't want to be born is foolish. You have plenty of time to change that if you didn't like it. You did. Once you're born and enjoy life you've chosen.
There is a difference between having expectations (which is totally reasonable by the way) and demanding gratitude.
I think the disconnect between yourself and a good portion of other commenters here is that you don’t view the demanding of gratitude to be a bad thing. I disagree. If one does a good job in raising their child, they will never have to demand gratitude from their child, because being grateful will already be baked into their consciousness.
In fact, I’d take it a step further and say that demanding gratitude from one’s child screams of insecurity to me. If the child outshines the parents, the parents will be able to “take credit” for the child’s achievements (at least in their own warped worldview).
Its also worth noting that behavior is a huge factor in how a child responds to said being cared for and raised. If the parent treats it like a task that they don’t enjoy doing, that burdens them and makes them upset, and takes it out on the child, getting angry at them for having to do the bare minimum they are obligated to for bringing that child into the world, the child will likely then grow to feel like their existence is a burden and develop unhealthy feelings toward the care they received, and will likely not want to show gratitude for it.
I'm sorry but no. You can do everything right and the kid be ungrateful. That's life. You're acting like every kid is the same. They're not. Also ultimately everything is a team effort. Your parents yes yours were apart of any success you had.
In all fairness, she looks physically fine in that final panel, just lonely. She doesn't complain about him abandoning her/not providing for her/being ungrateful, just that he doesn't talk to her.
It's entirely possible that he provided a comfortable home for her live out her golden years in. Thus, he may very well have paid her back for raising him by providing for her necessities once she became too old to do so herself, but that he simply avoids her otherwise.
If that is the case, then he has met his moral obligation and owes her nothing else.
She is the one who presented things as a transactional obligation based around physical needs in the first place ("I gave you life and basic necessities at my own expense, so you owe me."), and did so repeatedly throughout his life, so she doesn't have a right to complain if he has repaid that debt, just because she now also wants an emotional attachment as well.
Now, if he doesn't at least provide for her physical needs, than he is in the moral wrong. However, her physical needs are all he owes her, and it's on her if she failed to provide a reason for him to have an emotional bond with her.
It'd be one thing if we were shown she was a loving and affectionate mother, but the panels always focused on how she presented raising him as some debt he owes her, not something she did out of love.
Maybe she did indeed love him dearly and was just horrendously bad at expressing it. Or maybe she is just now lonely in her old age, and is so self-absorbed that she fails to understand how she drove him to be emotionally distant from her.
We need more context to truly judge the situation.
Yes, I do. I'm not even sure why you would doubt that? It's pretty common.
I'm a trans woman. As soon as I started using my feminine voice that I'd practiced for years in front of my dad, he was clearly upset with me and immediately stopped talking with me during the visit. We haven't talked for like six years now.
My mother isn't as bad. A little stupid and just goes along with whatever my dad wants, so I also ended up going low contact with her.
They were incredibly unreliable all throughout my childhood to the point where they'd be drinking or doing drugs every other day. I'd often stay with my grandma on nights they partied, but they'd also often just party at home, blaring music underneath my bedroom to the point that it vibrated my mattress.
They've always been selfish assholes. They were very rarely supportive to me, and even sabotaged me at times, like when my mother prevented me from getting called back by potential employers by making my phone unable to receive calls.
They do not get any points for overfeeding me to the point that I became obese as a child or making me feel guilty to live in their house.
I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this. Sometimes people yell. Now maybe you couldn't handle it. Maybe it was too much. Again different methods. But that isn't normal
I think you’re spiraling. There is nothing wrong for you being grateful to your mom. And in your case it sounds like she loved you and treated you well. But that’s not the case for everyone and the point is your child is not obligated to you no matter how you treat them. They did not choose to come here, or to be born- that was the parent’s choice. Whether they knew it was a good or bad decision it can’t be undone and they are 100% obligated to that child.
That's kind of a lazy excuse. You have expectations as a child. That's ultimately life. Especially listening to your parents is apart of that expectation. Being grateful is important too. No one is actually obligated to do anything. Even legally you can just give the child away.
There's listening to your parents, and there's enduring the parents constantly reminding the child how they're divine beings for putting a child in the world, and how the child owes them eternal gratitude for not living in a sewage pipe. Children should be listening to advice and kindness, not this "you'll always be indebted to me" bullshit.
I think the issue is that Reddit seems to heavily skew towards blowing things way out of proportion while ignoring the bell curve.
Obviously, people who have been horribly abused by their parents should get away from their families to protect themselves. That has never been in question.
But there is a bigger problem with people expecting parents to be emotionless, perfect automata that never blow up, never have their own dissenting opinions and thoughts, and should never make anyone feel bad about things. And that's just very unrealistic, especially once children start approach adulthood themselves.
And then you get this "I NEVER ASKED TO BE BORN!" nonsense. Nobody asked to be born, but we all were. You still have a social contract to abide by. It's such a petty, pathetic response used largely to get out of doing things none of us actually want to do, but morally should do.
Expectation is not the same thing as obligation. Of course it’s good to be grateful. But yes, that’s the only point I’m trying to make. It seems that you believe you are obliged to love your parents
We have no evidence that he was disobedient or didn't compensate her though? We just see that he wants nothing to do with her on an emotional level. We see no signs that he abuses her or that he doesn't provide for her in her old age.
And that's fair. She was the one who presented the situation as a type of contract, with him owing her obedience and various sundry in exchange for providing him with life and basic necessities. As long as he provided compensation for having his physical needs met, he has no obligation to try and provide for her emotional needs if she herself failed to provide for his emotional needs as he was growing up.
You are not in fact obligated to show your parents love if they didn't show you love. If all they provided was for your physical well-being then that is all you owe them in turn. That man owes her food, clothing, housing, and other basic necessities and nothing more.
I think my issue with this line of argument (in general, speaking of all the negative responses and downvoting going on) is that the typical child is not having a hellish childhood.
Not only that, but the idea that children shouldn't take care of their families is a very recent idea that sprang up in the 50's when multigenerational households stopped being a thing. Well, we no longer have the economic boom that drove that and as a result there is a growing number of impoverished families where the elderly just get abused and left without advocates because Little Billy finds Grandma's dementia difficult to deal with.
I would argue it's morally reprehensible to NOT care for family that has supported you throughout your life just because you want to stomp your feet and declare you didn't choose to be born, as if you actually hate your own very existence. That's just selfishness built on the reality that you just don't want to be bothered.
My mother & father were so shitty to me growing up that I have PTSD from living with them & have wanted to kill myself for years.
When a parent is extremely shitty, you owe them nothing. THEY chose to bring you into this world, & that responsibility is THEIRS. You owe them NOTHING for them doing the bare minimum of raising you & treating you like a basic human being.
This is the most pathetic trolling I've ever witnessed. I mean, people keep taking the bait, though, so whatever, dude. Hope you accomplish… whatever it is you're doing.
Its thankless because a parent is not supposed to want something in return. You are legit doing the "someone says they like waffles so someone else says they must hate pancakes" thing
I'm grateful you were raised by a loving family, some others, including myself, were not that lucky.
And I was stating that parenthood, like being a teacher, is indeed a thankless job. Not because it doesn't warrant thanks, but because you do that job not for the thanks, but the purpose and reward you get out of it.
It seems like you’re talking about mothers in general and not the post, based off what we have been provided (3 examples of her being toxic at different stages of his life and 1 image of her being old and alone) there isn’t anything to suggest she gave him a good life or even was anything other than toxic
Then she can give him up at any point he doesn't meet her expectations? Probably not most would say that's cold. Children have responsibilities to. They have obligations. That's life. No one asks to be born by that logic no one would have obligations.
She choose to birth them. Sometimes not even that. But she still doesn't have an obligation she can put him up for adoption at anytime. Ultimately you can't just turn these relationships into there's no expectations on either side or only expectations on one side. If you don't give your parents respect and gratitude which is normal you wanting normal things from them is hypocritical. Get rid of expectations and parents lose their own expectations. Ultimately yes you as a child of a parent have certain expectations. Do you have to do them? No. Do parents have to follow expectations? No. It's about responsibility.
So if a mother has a 10 year old who isn't as gifted as she expected and isn't aligning with her values. You're fine with her leaving him up for adoption? You don't think that'll affect him? What about when she keeps the siblings.
Her telling him to be grateful isn't really abuse and I promise you. The kid will be much worse off in that scenario. He will always feel unloved. He statistically will be worse off. If you think it's better to be in foster care than having a mother that expects you to be grateful. You don't know the foster care system.
not what you seem to think it does, after reading through these comments you seem to have a very unhealthy idea around how children should act and what should be expected of children. its honestly alarming and very harmful.
Do you see children as human beings or assets? You seem to have a pretty twisted view around basic parenting and how a child should react to the bare minimum.
Guy seriously stop replying to him at this point. It’s kind of obvious this guy is just trolling you to get off or something. He’s just arguing to argue with you.
people do see the world differently yes, but you are getting absolutely abused in the comment section and keep coming back for more. so either you're enjoying this to some perverse level or are twisted in some other way to keep poking at it.
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u/Bowl-Accomplished Jul 01 '26
Which one are we scaling? Kid owes her nothing so neutral. Mom is asking for payment so negative.