As our parents grow older, sooner or later we all wonder: what will happen when they can no longer take care of themselves? Who will look after them? And where do our responsibilities lie in this? What do we owe them?
For a long time, I thought the answer was simple. If there’s a healthy, loving relationship between child and parent, it’s clear the child will care for their aging parent in some way. Not out of obligation, but because it feels natural.
Because caring isn’t a debt—it’s a flow back.
However, I firmly believe that a child fundamentally has no obligation. They didn’t choose to be born. Their parents made that decision and accepted the responsibility to raise, nurture, and care for them—knowing one day the child’s life would be their own. Raising a child isn’t an investment expecting returns later. Parents can’t invoice twenty years of care; it must be given selflessly and without expectations.
But if someone was raised with love and respect, they’re likely to respond with love and respect to their aging parents. Not because they owe them, but because that’s how emotional bonds work. Love breeds love; care breeds care.
But what if there was no love?
My childhood wasn’t easy. I didn’t get the kind of safety and acceptance from my parents—especially my father—that a child needs. Instead, I experienced fear, unpredictability, and wounds. Words, fears, and situations I’m still working through as an adult—through therapy, self-help books, and quiet inner conversations. And even now, I suffer from it every day. Sometimes quietly, sometimes in ways that freeze my whole body.
Now, as I see my parents aging, I can’t help but ask myself: what is my responsibility?
Legally, there might be answers. Morally, it’s much more complicated.
Because I know rationally: I don’t owe them anything. Even if they had been good to me, they couldn’t demand anything. But if they did, on what grounds? Certainly not for my pain. Not for my childhood anxieties or struggles with self-worth. Not for the nightmares that still haunt me, the PTSD, or freezing up emotionally in intense moments.
And yet.
When I imagine leaving them alone, I feel guilt. Not because they consciously taught me to feel that way, but because inside me there’s a personal standard for the kind of person I want to be.
Not like my father.
I don’t want to live out of revenge. I don’t want to say, “Now it’s your turn.” Because that won’t heal the past. It only passes on the hardness.
But giving myself up again isn’t an option either. I won’t slip back into a dynamic where their needs outweigh my boundaries.
Maybe here’s the key: caring doesn’t mean losing yourself.
I’m sure I won’t move them in with me. I won’t be their primary caregiver. But I might help find a facility, handle some arrangements, visit occasionally. I’ll be present in a way that doesn’t reopen old wounds.
For a long time, I thought there were only two choices: all or nothing. Either self-sacrificing child or completely cutting ties. Now I’m beginning to see it’s more nuanced.
The question may not be whether I owe them. It’s what I can give without betraying myself. And if they didn’t, I will protect the little child still living inside me—the one I truly owe care to.
