What Parents Owe Their Children

Lin — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 12:00:15 +0000

What do parents owe their children? Do parents “owe” their children anything? Do parents owe their kids a college education, or an inheritance? Are the challenges of parenting causing concern and doubt on how to be a good parent while raising your children and teens? What does “parental responsibility” include in raising children?

The only things parents “owe” their kids in a material way is to provide for their basic needs of water, food, clothing and shelter until the children reach adulthood, where “kids” then take on the responsibilities of caring for their own needs as adults.

Children, adolescents and adults have 6 basic human needs including: physical, emotional, social, intellectual, spiritual and creative needs in order to be happy, healthy and well-adjusted individuals. Things such as personal ambition, self-control, respect, obedience, happiness, self-esteem, morality, courage, loyalty, integrity, honesty and independence are all things that cannot be bought or given, but must be learned.

Parents have the responsibility to teach and train their children about the basics of life such as how to speak, eat, walk, tie their shoes, use good manners etc, and it is the parents’ obligation and responsibility to love and care for their children with firm guidance and consistent discipline, support and educate them until they reach the age when they can and should provide for themselves and take care of their own needs.

Things Parent’s Do Not Owe Their Children

Parent’s do not owe their children every second or minute of their day, nor every ounce of their energy. Parent’s do not owe their children round-the-clock car service, singing lessons, dance lessons, karate lessons, trips to summer camp, trips to Disney World, expensive bicycles, a credit card, a motorcycle or a car when they reach the age of sixteen, or a trip to Europe when they graduate high school. Parents need to get off the “you owe me” guilt-trip and learn how to say no to children and their numerous demands and unrealistic expectations, and mean it.

Parents do not owe their children a college education or an inheritance. If parents can afford to send their children to college, fine; but parents must not become guilt-ridden if or when they cannot afford to send their kids to college. If children want or plan to attend college and their parents are not financially able to afford the expense, kids that really want to go to college can do so with scholarships, federal grant programs, student loans, etc. Parents who fall victim to the “give-me game” may find themselves guilted into bankruptcy if not careful.

When children become adults, parents do not owe them a down payment on a house or money for the furniture. Parents do not have an obligation to baby-sit or to take their grandchildren into their home when the parents go on vacation. If parents want to do it, it is a favor, not an obligation. Parents do not “owe” their grown children financial help or an inheritance regardless of how much money a parent has. Parents must learn to cut the financial umbilical cord for their own sake and for the sake of their children.

The parental responsibility of raising children to adulthood is an enormous challenge, as parents strive to provide for their child’s needs as best they can, only to hear those ominous words as kids get older, “you owe me” this or that. The idea of owing anything to children is usually heard from entitled teenagers and grown adult children who have unrealistic expectations of a parents responsibility and obligations to kids.

Psychotherapist Eileen Gallo, along with her husband John J. Gallo, collaborated on the book, Silver Spoon Kids : How Successful Parents Raise Responsible Children, and Gary W. Buffone, Ph.D., author of Choking on the Silver Spoon: Keeping Your Kids Healthy, Wealthy and Wise in a Land of Plenty, have provided parents two excellent parenting guides to ensure children don’t become spoiled about money in an age of unprecedented wealth, unlimited credit, rampant materialism and entitlement.

Included are helpful checklists, self-tests, and brief bits of wisdom and advice that parents can quickly put to use. Parents, if you have ever wondered how to talk to your kids about what money is and is not, what money can and cannot do, the above books are a great place to start.

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