15. Children Obligations With Parents

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

For those who don't know me, I am majoring in Economics. I try to be as highly engaged with the subject both theoretical and real world applications. I listen to multiple Econ related podcasts and read several blogs and news articles because its important to know what is happening around us but also just for my own entertainment. I listened to a podcast from Freakonomics Radio (highly recommend you listen to their podcast) but the title is called "Should Kids Pay Back Their Parents For Raising Them" It's a very interesting subject not just because its Econ related (which most of you are probably thinking how is this Econ related) and once again I want people to stop associating Econ with just money, banks, and stocks. Yes, as Economist we always want to quantify things that cannot be quantified but Economics is the social science that studies how individuals, firms, governments make choices on allocating scarce resources to satisfy their unlimited wants. 

Back to the podcast, there is no right or wrong answer to that question. There are so many variables associated with the question that all cases could have a different outcome or quantity. There are also some unwritten rules of helping out your parents when they become older. Primarily this idea has lots to do with your culture. I come from a hispanic background and I know that once my mother is older I'll help her financially as much as I could. There is no law or written contract that requires me to do that but its something that I want to do. This applies in other cultures like people from India, and China, etc. Meanwhile the American culture isn't structured that way, hence social security. We have that to make sure elders can take care of themselves without having their children to intervene.

In the olden times, children were viewed as "assets" because our society was more structured for agriculture versus service industry today so the more children you had, the more help you had with crops and labor for the field. Today children are no longer assets but "consumption value".

In the podcast, there was an example about this football player that got drafted and his mother asked him for 1 million dollars. The player faced a tough dilemma since obviously he wanted to get his mom a house and a car but for his mother to straight up ask him for a million dollars since she raised him and helped him get to the NFL was a bit weird to just ask him.

I hope the question that was brought up by the peeps at Freakonomics Radio got you thinking of whether you should or shouldn't have to pay back your parents for raising you. Could be indirectly or directly, there is no right or wrong answer. Just remember, when you have children, what would you want them to do for you.

Thanks for reading.