Opinion | The Unpaid Debt: Rethinking What Children Owe Their Parents

It is reported that one time, in a conversation with a journalist, a woman from Kashmir confessed that she had not bought herself a new pair of shoes in the last six years since the money was used on coaching classes for her son to prepare him for a medical entrance examination. She did not express this with a trace of bitterness but rather as a matter-of-fact information, a part of everyday life, nothing unusual. This one fact conveys something about the parental sacrifices made in India, which statistics cannot show: this enormous amount of selfless deeds done by parents throughout the years for kids, who appreciate it decades later, if ever.

In the culture of India, respect for parents was never seen as an act of courtesy. Rather, it is close to the moral duty that is enforced not only by religion and literature but also by law. The Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, adopted by the Indian Parliament in 2007, requires children to support those parents who cannot afford living on their own. It is rare to see that filial duty is regulated by the law in such a direct manner and not simply left for social norms to do its job.

The economics of Indian parenting account for a lot of things concerning this duty. Unlike other countries with well-developed pension system and government-provided nursing homes, in India most parents, especially not belonging to the organised sector, save all the money they earn over the years on educating and providing for their children. Parents assume that this money will return to them when the time comes.

This intergenerational contract is now challenged by several factors. Firstly, although love between parents and children has not diminished, the modern world poses many challenges for families. One of them is migration: parents now live far away from their sons and daughters who moved out of town to find a job either in another city of India or even in another country, such as Qatar or Dubai. Even when a son sends his parents money every month, he might feel guilty of not being able to support them personally.

The child who relocates to Bengaluru or Gurugram for better work opportunities is usually responsible for organizing appointments between parents and doctors, doing so via video calls, which is a poor alternative to the presence of the younger relative in person, something that previous generations had no trouble obtaining. Finances are now much easier to provide than the emotional and physical presence that aging parents desire above all else.

At the same time, there is another discussion taking place beneath the surface, a discussion that Indian society is not comfortable holding openly because the reality of parental respect is that not everyone is worthy of it, even if they have been parents before. There are, indeed, instances of parents being treated poorly or neglected or even abandoned by children and documented by welfare boards established by the 2007 Act to address issues of senior citizens. Likewise, there are parents whose behavior makes them difficult to respect; parents who are too domineering or uninterested in their children’s independence or, in some extreme instances, even abusive. Respect is usually not unconditional on either side; it comes from years of reciprocation rather than automatic because of the biological ties alone.

What gets overlooked in critical discussion of the issue is the scale of sacrifices made by the typical Indian parent. The high costs of schooling; tuition and coaching expenses, especially pronounced in areas such as Kashmir, where the trend towards the preparation for NEET and JEE has accelerated dramatically in the last ten years. Costs associated with dowry-related wedding expenses, illegal though they might be for over two decades now. Those are tangible sacrifices. Those sacrifices manifest themselves in delayed retirement, postponed medical procedures, houses left as is and in giving up on personal aspirations that the parents had for themselves in favor of the children’s future.

Children, in turn, are perfectly justified in objecting to the unreasonable demands regarding marriage and career choices when such exist because the more educated and independent next generation begins negotiating the requirements of respect rather than just accepting them as is. It produces conflicts, which are reflected in the rise, although very small compared to those of other nations, of complaints from elders about neglect as well as the general culture of concern regarding how traditional family structures fare in today’s world.And yet, the instinct remains intact nonetheless.

Even Indian children who have settled abroad and made their own lives away from their parents keep sending money back to their families, coming back for their holidays and prioritizing the medical emergency of a parent over career convenience when it really matters. While the respect they show has taken a new form – lesser ritualized submission and more negotiations that are sometimes difficult, the feeling of debt and its repayment has remained the same.

The best way to view this changing relationship would probably be viewing it as an ongoing negotiation between two generations who have grown up in different times in India. Neither it is a duty to be fulfilled unconditionally nor an old debt that is becoming irrelevant. The mother who did without new shoes for six years never demanded this from her son. But noticing and doing something about what one notices is perhaps the most truthful way to show respect in a nation trying to figure out what it owes to its parents and how to repay the debt.

mdmuslimbhat@gmail.com