18-year-old refuses to pay rent when her parents demand it after she has already moved out: ‘[My aunt said] my parents really needed this and deserved it for raising me [but] I want nothing to do with them’ – FAIL Blog

Can you imagine paying your parents rent when you’re no longer living with them, simply because they “deserve” it for raising you?

We shouldn’t owe our parents for our upbringing. It simply doesn’t make sense for us to be indebted to those who brought about our existence and thus chose the responsibility of raising us through our development. There are, of course, exceptions to this, but there seems to be a rising number of stories and accounts from people who claim that they’ve been asked to repay their parents for the costs incurred during their upbringing.

One such example comes from a viral story where a young adult claimed that their extended family had a tradition of keeping a ledger of everything that had been purchased for each child and then, on their 18th birthday, the newly fledged adult was presented with the total debt that they owed to their parents—a debt they needed to repay. Who knows which of the many versions of this story is real or folk fiction, but they touch on a very poignant issue and raise the question: just what do we owe our parents for our upbringing?

We, of course, will feel gratitude towards our parents for all of the time and energy they invested into giving us the best start in life they possibly could with the circumstances presented to them. And, we will, in time, inevitably be there for them when they need us as family does for each other. However, there will likely never be an instance where that full sum can be considered totaled and repaid in full. And there shouldn’t be; Parenthood is an obligation to your child, a chosen responsibility, not a service rendered or a debt to be repaid.

In this story, this 18-year-old woman found herself faced with the troubling decision of whether or not to support her problematic parents at the cost of her own future. This request brought all sorts of feelings and unanswered questions across her family, bringing about debate and drama for the extended family to quarrel over.