From the author: Treat your parents the way you would want your own children to treat you. Socrates. There are a lot of articles on our website about whether children owe anything to their parents. Just the other day, I read a very categorical article here, the opinion of a psychologist, with many exclamation marks “No!!!! You shouldn’t, only do something if you want!” For several days I thought about this statement and whether it could sound “from the mouth” of a specialist. I would still like to differentiate something. Let's start with childhood. The talk about how no one asked to give birth to a child has already, honestly, set the teeth on edge, that, they say, there is no need to now demand from children to repay the debt for giving birth to you. No one will ever repay this debt, the child will not be able to give birth to his parent, and it is not a debt at all. A child is the fruit of the love of a man and a woman, not always, of course, but I would like to believe that in most cases. A fait accompli, the child was born. His parents surround him with care, affection, and love. Now I’m talking about normal, healthy families, where there are loving parents, a beloved baby and in general everything is fine. And it doesn’t matter at all how the parents’ future life turns out, the child will forever remain his mother’s and father’s. The child grows up and now he MUST, of course, go to school, then, the boy, he MUST pay his DEBT to the Motherland, that is, serve in the Army. At school he must obey the school regulations, and in the Army regulations. And only as he grows up does he owe absolutely nothing to his parents. I differentiate: an adult child should not follow the orders of his relatives: where to study, who to marry, who to be friends with, who to work with. Parents should not manipulate their children, in terms of keeping them close to them in their favorite ways, feigning illnesses, thereby attracting the attention of their beloved child, the most common type of manipulation. Neither parents nor children should sacrifice their lives for the sake of each other. But... when the child was small and incapable of anything, the mother had sleepless nights, worries about all sorts of illnesses of the baby, worries about school, for not understanding friends, first love, etc. By and large, no one except parents really needs a child. When parents grow old, they turn into the same children, small, helpless, sometimes completely weak, and who, if not their children, could need them? From whom can we expect help, support and attention? I think the majority of those present here are both parents and children. And everyone will grow old someday, and I don’t think that anyone who claims that adult children owe their parents anything at all would want to find themselves in a situation where their own son or daughter would say: “I don’t owe you anything, I have no desire to look after you and help." Someone will say, “such relationships are brought up in the family, instilled by the parents themselves, which means it is their own fault that the children do not want to help, pay attention to their mom and dad.” All wrong. There are many families in which there were healthy, wonderful relationships, and then, for some reason, the adult aunt or uncle, called daughter and son, becomes strangers. It is with this problem that clients come and, in many cases, I do not see any parental guilt in the fact that their children no longer need them. It is wrong to say that children do not owe their parents anything. There is no need to call it debt, this is not a market relationship. This is the return of the energy of love, understanding, everything that parents gave to their children. And isn’t it too thoughtless to publicly and categorically declare that children don’t owe their parents anything at all? For example, I know that quite a lot of young people read the articles, but wouldn’t the seed be sown that “well, if psychologists say that I don’t owe my parents anything, then that’s true. How good that is!” Can be interpreted in a completely different way. We are responsible for every word we say, like no one else. They should be creative, not destructive. Isn’t it better to replace the word duty with acceptance of your parents, refuse to judge them, understand.