Obligation

While reading the piece titled What Do Grown Children Owe Their Parents the author Jane English brought up several good points about the dynamics of this relationship. One point that she made that I found very interesting was when she made the statement “regardless of the quantity of childhood sacrifices, an able, wealthy child has an obligation to help his needy parents more than does a needy child”. I found this statement interesting for several reasons, following this statement the author provides a good example of two sisters, one who was a great child but is now struggling as an artist (Dana), and the other who was not the best child but now a successful lawyer (Cecile). According to the view of the author the child who is now successful has more of an obligation to help her parents, because she has the ability to do so not because of the sacrifice her parents had made for her prior. From the example that the author provided I would agree with her statement. I do agree that if you have the means to do so and it would have no significant impact on your own wellbeing that you should help your parents in any way possible. Yet going off of the idea that you are obligated to help your parents not based on the sacrifices they made for you but because you have the ability to do so, the scenario of a neglectful or simply non supportive parent parent plays out in my mind. Looking at the same example the author gave suppose those same parents always supported Dana with her art, on the other hand they looked down upon Cecile, and subjected her to verbal abuse. Yet in the end Cecile still becomes successful and Dana is not, I personally feel that just because Cecile is now successful and has the means to help her parents so has no obligation to help them. They did not support the dreams that she had, that have now manifested into her success. She has no obligation simply because she has the means to do so, she could help out of kindness of sympathy but should not help out of obligation.