When you purchase something at the store and don’t pay for it immediately you owe the store money. When someone does an act of kindness for you you owe them gratitude — whether or not they demand it. In other words you owe somebody something to the extent that they have given to or done something for you; you are indebted to them. The dictionary defines the word “owing” in two ways: “to be under obligation to pay or repay” and “to be indebted (to) as the cause or source of a benefit.”

Who Owes Who What         

Now that we understand our terms let’s discuss who owes who what in family life. We’ll begin with the obvious. A parent raises a child caring for the youngster’s physical and emotional needs twenty-four hours a day for years on end. The parent feeds and clothes the child provides various kinds of formal and informal education provides stimulation entertainment and pleasurable activities transports the child here and there pays for every necessity and luxury that he or she can afford and in short nurtures and supports the child’s growth and development in every imaginable way. The parent has been the “cause or source of benefit” as described above and therefore the child is indebted to (owes) the parent. In fact Rabbi Reiss of Toronoto’s Mesivta Gedolah gave a talk a few years back in which he quoted the Gemara as saying that a child owes a parent so much for helping him to survive the first two years of life alone that he can never adequately pay the parent back!

But here’s the question: What does the parent owe the child?

Indebted to One’s Children

What does a parent owe her fifty-five-year-old son? If the son provides financial assistance physical care and emotional support the parent owes him gratitude. What does a parent owe her ten-year-old daughter? Again this will depend on what benefit the daughter has provided for the parent. If this youngster willingly helps with child care or household chores then providing these benefits creates a situation in which the parent is indebted to the daughter and owes her gratitude. (Parents are also responsible for sustaining their dependent children — that is providing them with food clothing and shelter.) In a similar fashion a husband owes his wife gratitude for making him dinner and a wife owes her husband gratitude for providing money with which to purchase ingredients. The fact that everyone is “supposed” to fulfill their responsibilities (i.e. the child is supposed to help the wife is supposed to cook and the husband is supposed to provide financially) does not detract from the benefit received. Therefore the recipient of the benefit owes gratitude.

You Owe Me

This being the case how is it that the ten-year-old thinks her mother owes her a designer sweater or a summer at a luxurious camp? Somewhere along the way we have forgotten the definition of the word “owe.” Too many young adult children now believe that their parents “owe” them a large wedding years of financial support a house travel costs provisions for babies and much more. And they let the parents know that this is their obligation! Of greater concern is that parents themselves feel that they owe their adult children all of these material benefits as well as Shabbos meals babysitting help with errands and anything else that might be needed. It was not always this way.

Only a generation or two ago youngsters were inculcated with the laws and spirit of honoring parents to the extent that there was no question in their minds of who owed who what. Even secular Jews knew full well that it was the child’s job to pay back the kindness of the parent with regular contact physical support and financial support. Moreover many of these people never took anything from their parents while their parents were alive (or took very little indeed) and enjoyed financial benefit only in the form of an inheritance that grateful parents were happy to leave behind.

Apart from the attitude of some modern children nothing has changed. Parents don’t owe their independent children anything except to the extent that these children have done acts of kindness for them. And then all they owe them is gratitude.

Children on the other hand owe their parents more than they can ever repay. When children really understand these concepts they do not get upset when their parents don’t choose to buy them expensive games trips clothes cars or what have you. They don’t feel that their parents owe them these things. Instead children feel grateful for what their parents have ALREADY given them and they try as hard as possible to repay at least a little of that kindness.