What We Own to Our Parent

Everyone time I look at those aging people who are at work, no matter what is their job, I just can not help thinking that where are their children? Just look at their age, their children must be making money now. If this is true, then how come these old people still have to work out to support themselves? I know there are always some exceptions, say their children are seriously ill and can not work, but for so many aged working people, it can not be that their children are all ill. One reasonable infer I could make is that their children feel they owe nothing to their parents and thus it is not their liability to support the old. But is this morally right? Let us put it aside first. Just imaging when you are at 60s or 70s, you still have to work seven hours a day otherwise you will not have enough to eat. How will you feel? You have tried your best to do everything for your children but finally you get nothing in return. Although you are not interested in the reciprocation, you will still feel disappointed. Your love for them finally gets you nothing. Since everyone has been giving so much to their children, those grown children really owe something to their parents. However, this is not true in the eye of Jane English.

In her article "What do grown children owe their parents?", she stated that the answer to this question that she would give is "nothing". She actually agreed that the children ought to do something for their parents, but argued that this was not a form of owing. Jane English also stated the reason why people rely on the "owing" terminology which is the misunderstandings about the proper relationship between parents and their grown children. She held the opinion that the relationship between parents and children should be friendship characterized by mutuality rather than reciprocal favors. And unlike those reciprocal favors which will create debt, the duties of friendship do not require equal quantities of sacrifice. She has also mentioned that even though children owe nothing to their parents, they ought to do something if the friendship still exists. In other words, Jane English felt that only when debt occurred that we could use the word "owe" and duties from favors will create debt. Between parents and children, there are only duties from friendship which will not create debt and thus children owe nothing to their parents.

However, I don't feel her argument is quite strong.

Basically, her argument is based on the idea that only when there is debt, then the word "owe" can be used. Before we look into this sentence, let us find out the meaning of "owe" first. Firstly, you owe somebody means you are in debt. Secondly, you owe somebody means you are under obligation to do something. Knowing the definition, we can now begin to study her argument. Can we owe something else except debt? I feel the answer should be "Yes ". Debt is something you are obligated to pay. However, when you receive help from strangers, I don't think you are obligated to pay back in any forms. It would be better if you pay back, why? Because you feel you owe the one who helps you something. Since you don't have to pay back, the thing you owe is not debt. What you owe is just a feeling of sacrifice. This kind of feeling drives you to do something for the one that once did a favor to you.

In the article, Jane English used the example of Nina and Max. She stated that duties from favors would create debt. Thus Max was in debt and had an obligation to reciprocate. But if Max didn't do anything, it was still alright. He would not get caught or beaten, unlike the case that someone didn't pay the debt. We can say that Max is not really in debt, he owed the feeling of sacrifice to Nina.

After this, Jane English discussed the duties arise from friendship. In short, her idea was that the duties from friendship do not require equal quantities of sacrifice and performing equal sacrifice does not cancel the duties of friendship. She used the two examples to illustrate this: One is Alfred and Beatrice, the other is Elmer, Doris and Dora.

Basically, I agree with her idea here. Favor from friendship does not create debt. Just as her said in the article, those who perform favors may be motivated by mutual gain. The author stated that as friends, when you were doing favors to others, you would not expect your friends to pay back. Thus she got the conclusion that the duties of friendship do not require equal quantities of sacrifice. This is the idea I don't feel quite satisfied with. I would like to bring in the idea of feeling of sacrificing here. If you are the one always get a lot of help, but you never do anything to your friends. Jane English thought this was acceptable. She said that as friends, helping each other was the thing you have to do so you had no right to ask for reciprocation.