When children become caregivers, who cares for them?
Many commenters reflect on the moral, emotional, and sometimes legal expectations that adult children – and even minors – will care for aging or disabled parents, especially when those parents were abusive, neglectful, or financially irresponsible. Personal stories highlight how caregiving can derail education, careers, and mental health, while others describe cultures where supporting parents is a deeply held norm and even a source of gratitude. Participants debate the roles of the state, private insurance, family size, and social safety nets in sharing or shifting this burden, and question whether children owe anything beyond what they freely choose to give.
Autonomy vs. Filial Duty
- Strong tension between “you’re allowed to cut off your parents” and cultural/legal ideas of obligation.
- Some countries and US states have filial responsibility laws, usually financial (paying for parents’ care) rather than forcing hands‑on caregiving.
- Several note that even without legal compulsion, the cost of care can effectively force children into becoming caregivers or facing bankruptcy.
Gratitude, Abuse, and Emotional Complexity
- One camp emphasizes gratitude: parents gave life and often sacrificed; caring for them later is seen as a moral duty or privilege.
- Others reject unconditional gratitude, stressing they never consented to being born and may have suffered neglect, abuse, or parentification.
- Disagreement over how common “malicious” parents are; some argue most are overwhelmed, others insist abusive or exploitative parents are not rare and shouldn’t be erased as “exceptions.”
- Many draw a firm line: care is proportional to how one was treated; some “fire” toxic parents entirely.
Child and Young Caregivers
- Deep sympathy for under‑18 caregivers; posters struggle to imagine teens or young children handling full‑time care.
- The article’s UK statistic (1M under‑18s doing 50+ hours/week) is widely challenged as implausible; later digging suggests it conflated “1M young carers total” with “~50k doing 50+ hours.”
- Discussion highlights ambiguity in how “care” and “hours” are defined (constant supervision, nights, emotional load).
State, Market, and Social Policy
- Some want much stronger public support (home help, day care for elders, decent hospices), framing unpaid child caregiving as systemic failure.
- Others distrust state institutions, citing historic neglect/abuse, and prefer accessible, more “free‑market” home care.
- Counterarguments note that home settings can also be abusive, and private care markets fail those without money.
Financial Responsibilities and Cultural Norms
- In many immigrant, Asian, African, and working‑class contexts, adult children routinely support parents or extended family; sometimes seen as heavy burden, sometimes as healthy mutual support.
- Some families explicitly expect major support (up to buying parents a house), justified by earlier parental sacrifices; others see such expectations as unfair unilateral “contracts.”
Long‑Term Care, Planning, and Family Size
- Several argue parents have an obligation to plan (savings, long‑term care insurance, “Medicaid spend‑down”) so children aren’t trapped as caregivers.
- Others talk about wanting multiple children to spread eldercare load, though many report that in practice one or two siblings still carry most of the burden.
- A recurring theme is not wanting to “ruin” one’s children’s prime years; this feeds discussion of euthanasia/suicide, with pushback about stigma, feasibility, and the psychological harm to surviving family.