Are your parents your responsibility?

No human is responsible for another human except against the solicited favors.

I have often seen it that after the children have grown up to be independent if they don’t behave and live in the way their parents and the society have expected them to, then they become contemptible.

I object.

I ask, what are these expectations of the parents and the society? That children, after they have grown up to be independent, should live to fulfill the unachieved dreams of their parents; should be the support for the parents in their old age; should live with parents all their lives; should earn enough to feed the needs and luxuries of the whole family which includes the parents, and so on.

I am not an anti-parents guy. I am not against the children living up to the expectations mentioned above. Fulfilling those expectations of the parents and the society would be, no doubt, the greatness of a person. But the point is, not fulfilling them does NOT render a person a social criminal!

It’s easy when the dreams and expectations of the child are in line with those of the parents, but what if the child is born with different flesh from their parents? What if the child is born with the talent of an artist while the parents dream of their child being a doctor? What if the child fancies a profession through which he will be able to earn barely enough to keep both ends together while their parents thought their child will be a millionaire? What if the child wants to attain spiritual bliss and seeks to go on to live as a monk in the Himalayas while their parents expect their child to be the support of their old age?

There are endless possibilities of situations which would put a person in great dilemma. Here, most of the children are forced to submit to the dreams and expectations of the parents and the society, and consequently one human life fails!

What causes them to submit? It’s the resonating voice of the society saying this most-ridiculous-thought-in-the-world: Your parents have done many favors on you. First, they brought you into this world. Then, they brought you up with hardships, fed you and nurtured you… And they are the ones who made you what you are today. So, you are indebted to them for your life. It’s your duty to live for the ones because of whom you exist!

As against this, what I prove with this article is this: Children are the responsibility of the parents; the parents are fully, totally and absolutely responsible for bringing up, feeding and nurturing their children. But, the parents are NOT the responsibility of children. Not rationally, nor morally, nor ethically!

The Indian reader with conventional mindset will stop reading it here and probably will never set an eye on my article ever again. But I will still write the truth as long as I have perfectly rational justification for it.

I will again say I am not an anti-parents guy. But I am a truth-seeker, and there come situations in life wherein you have got to know the truth, so as to avoid getting stuck into the dilemma.

Let’s understand quickly the responsibility thing: No human is responsible for another human except against the solicited favors. Meaning, you are indebted to or responsible for someone only if you have received a favor from him which you had asked for. Even unsolicited favors do not make you indebted.

I won’t waste more time explaining above statement because, by some mental exercise, you can gauge its soundness for yourself. After all, rationality is a universal thing.

Why are parents responsible for the children?

As per the universal law of responsibility (by the school of rationality) stated above, parents are responsible, in totality, for the children as the children are deemed to be “solicited favors” onto parents.

There are many reasons why humans produce children, all concentrated around the wellbeing of the parents themselves. When the parents are in the process of producing a child they are not thinking about how their life is going to be while bringing up the child. They are just enjoying good sex. That’s one, and the basic, reason why the children are produced, and it is concentrated around the wellbeing of the parents alone.

For some parents the child is a token of love. The child would bring lots of love in their lives. For some, the child is a psychological desire. For some, the child is a way to keep the race going on and a means to pass on the heritage. For some, the child is a tool to live the unachieved dreams with. For some, the child is a social need. For some, the child would be a financial support in the far away future. There are countless reasons why humans bring a child into the world. And most of the time, more than one of those reasons are in place. Which ever the case, the reasons are always centered around wellbeing and convenience of the parents, be it physical, psychological, social, or financial.

For this wellbeing and/or convenience when they produce a child it is fully their responsibility to nurture it because in the form of child they are producing a life which is as human as themselves, and has the same feelings and sense of experience as they do. The life has actually taken place for them. It’s a greatest favor on them and so it makes them indebted to it to the absolute degree. It is their responsibility to nurture the child until he is able to survive in the world independently.

Why are children not responsible for the parents?

As per the same law of responsibility children are absolutely not responsible for the parents because, first of all, they are not indebted to the parents because whatever parents did for them was already their responsibility.

Children owe nothing to the parents except if there are favors which were solicited, or those things which are received over and above the responsibility of the parents after the child became able to survive independently – which may include share in the property, investments and/or other financial matters.

I don’t intend to discourage children from caring about their parents. If someone is bound with the parents not by responsibilities but by love and emotions then that’s the coolest thing in one’s life! I am just stating the truth for those who are into the dilemma, so as to help them be free of the forced-upon feeling of guilt and the possible depression which might follow, which the world is not going to understand and acknowledge.

If you analyze all the reasons why children are produced (except for the basic one, called sex), you will see that they are all human reasons. And all human reasons can be summed up in one line: Parents need security - physical, psychological, social, or financial security through their child.

Now this goes for all the parents -

It is okay to seek security from your children, as long as they are happy with it, but if you are making them sacrifice their long-cherished dreams to your need of security then you are being utterly unjust to your children.

If you can understand rationality, then by now you already know that your children are in no way responsible for you, so for God’s sake don’t overburden them and let them free to live their life the way they want to. You can, of course, advise them when they are choosing the wrong path, but you can not force them towards something which you think is right. And besides, if they take the wrong path then they will learn the lesson, which will rather make them more diligent with life, and that would be good for them.

AND, if you are worried about your future then keep this in mind: If you can not create security for your own life on your own – be it physical, psychological, social, or financial security – then it is absolutely your personal failure. Your children have got nothing to do with it.

The same applies for those who are children today and will be parents some day.

Are you happy or content?

The essence of life is not happiness but the state wherein there's neither happiness nor pain but contentment.

Everyone in the world wants to be happy. The purpose of human life seems to be attaining happiness in all the things we do. It is so human, and hence, so immature. Even after running behind happiness all life you seldom feel satisfied with all the things you have got. That means there’s something wrong with the whole exercise of living for happiness. Before aspiring something you have to understand the nature of it. When you understand the nature of happiness, you will understand that the pursuit of happiness is futile.

In truth, happiness does not exist in real; meaning, it is never a lasting thing. What you call happiness is just a temporary state of mind after the pain ceases.

Let’s understand this with the help of examples –

You know, in life you are not always happy or in pain. Some times you are just neutral. Between pain and happiness there is a state of neutrality, wherein you are neither happy nor in pain.

Suppose you are living in that neutral state. Life goes on smoothly without happiness or pain. Now one day you meet an accident, which injures your arm awfully and puts you into immense pain. The infection develops and it becomes difficult to heal the wound in short time. Your life becomes very painful and full of sorrow as the wound does not heal for days and gives you constant pinching.

After a couple of months as your wound is still not healed the doctor decides to apply the new treatment. Miraculously, the new treatment works wonder and your arm becomes good in no time. Now this brings you great happiness as the awful pain of months ends finally. So, this is the state of immense happiness… or is it? This is the same state in which you dwelt prior to the accident and the injury. It was, then, the state of neutrality. How come the same state of neutrality now seems to be the state of immense happiness? This is, in fact, a temporary state of mind called happiness.

After a couple more months you are back to the normal life and the accident and the injury have become things of the past no more thought over. And the state of immense happiness is again morphed into its real hue which is neutrality. Happiness is faded away. Or we can say it was a temporary feeling which died out after a while.

Because happiness is not a real thing, it can not last. It is always, always for a while.

Another, and more human-centric, example: It talks about expectations and craving. Unlike an arm injury which is a physical pain, expectations and craving are psychological pains. When your mind is laden with expectations and craving for something there is a feeling of distress within, which is a psychological pain.

Suppose you are using a simple black-and-white screen mobile phone, and life goes on smoothly. No need to tell this is the state of neutrality – where contentment can be felt. One day you see an advertisement of a high-tech color mobile phone with touch-screen and it moves you. You want to possess it desperately now. It’s very costly. You start saving money for it. The desire is so strong that you can’t wait to own it. The thought of not being able to own it puts you in distress. Such desire to own or posses something is a psychological pain; it won’t let your mind rest.

After a couple of months you have saved enough and you go buy the new phone. The desire is satisfied, the pain ends. As a result, a temporary state arises which you would call the state of immense happiness. This is the same state which you had experienced when you bought your simple black-and-white screen mobile phone too, and you had called it happiness then. If that was happiness, then what is it now?

The fact is that it was a temporary state then, and it is a temporary state now. Wait for a couple more months and the new mobile phone too will become just another thing you own, losing all its charm. The temporary state of mind called happiness will fade away and the life will slip into the state of neutrality – until you give way to another pain.

This shows that what we call a state of being happy is nothing but a temporary state after the pain is ended. Soon the happiness would fade away and it would become the state of neutrality – from where you can either give way to another pain and enter the endless cycle of sorrow and happiness OR find contentment in it, latter one being the essence of life.

The essence of life is not happiness but the state wherein there's neither happiness nor pain but contentment; because happiness is anyway not real, and pain is what no one would want.

More than the physical pain, it’s the pain of the mind that has made human life so miserable today.

Enlightened is the one who has transcended the human experiences as pain and happiness. He would not be moved by worldly pleasures, nor be hurt by broken expectations. He is in perfect bliss which is contentment.