There is a lot of debate over how much a child owes to their parents after they grow up. It differs between cultures, circumstances, as well as how a parent and child behaved towards each other while the child grew up.
But what if the parents kicked a child out for wanting to follow his own dreams and not theirs? How much should that child, once grown up, owe their parents? Should they forgive past grudges and let the parents live with them because they want to? Or, should the child treat them the same way they had treated the child?
Well, that is specifically the question that plagues Reddit user u/OutrageousIndian. But he had already taken a course of action and wanted to see what the internet thought of it. So he explained his situation on the subreddit r/AmITheAsshole. He did not let his parents live with him, but he had his reasons.
Trouble With The Parents Right From 17
u/OutrageousIndian (let’s call him OI) said that everyone in his family has always been a doctor. And that it was natural that his parents thought he would be one too.
But he had no intention of being one. When he told them that at 17, his relationship with his parents turned very sour:
“…[I] told my family I was NOT going to be a doctor but to build an acting career / social media career (youtube wasn’t huge then) and supplement my income with small business endeavours. When I told my family this they kicked me out and we subsequently lost contact for 17 years.” – Reddit
But the story continues. He had 2 other siblings, a brother, and a sister, both of whom managed to become doctors. The parents had moved to the UK. During the pandemic, however, the man had reconnected with her parents and they told him that they would return to Sydney and were searching for a home. They never asked what he was doing in Sydney or how he got by in life after getting kicked out.
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A Reunion That Was Not Very Happy
The man, meanwhile, found success in his own way. OI claims to have become a very successful investment banker and could afford one of the nicest houses in the city. While in Sydney, OI showed his parents his home, which apparently they could not afford. This, oddly, lead to negative reaction:
“When we arrived at my house they thought I was renting a room and enquired how much rent was, I informed them that I wasn’t renting and that this was my house. They lost their shit, accusing me of lying to them for years and only meeting up to rub their face in my “probably illegally gained” wealth, and capped it off by informing me that they’ll be living with me now instead of with my oldest brother, since they can’t be seen living in a worse house then their son.” – Reddit
But OI was having none of it. He laughed at the demands and said that he would never allow them inside his home. Hearing this, the parents were livid:
“At that point they threatened to “cut me out of their will”, to which I reminded them of the fact that they can’t even afford to buy it my area, so their will and assets don’t really matter to me.
Now they aren’t talking to me, and my brother and sister are saying I should have been proactive in letting them know of my success (I have a public linkedin profile, so they literally never googled me).” – Reddit
Could He Have Done Better?
Now, OI thinks that he may have been the ‘a-hole’ for keeping the parents informed of his whereabouts. And the majority of the internet thinks that that is not the case.
The verdict has been overwhelmingly in favor of OI, in spite of cultural differences:
“I realize this is a cultural issue, but if these parents HAVE assets and a will to speak of, why can’t they find their own accommodations? Why would empty nesters even want to live with grown children? Let alone the grown child they kicked out and for all intents and purposes, disowned almost 20 years ago?” – WhichComfortable0
However, a minority seemed to think that OI’s attitude was not any better than his parents:
“ESH (everyone sucks here).
Yeah, they treated you poorly when they were 17, and they sound entitled an awful now.
But you sound unbearable as well. And this post just feels like an attempt to brag about how well you’re doing. Money isn’t everything, bro.” – 115DegreeSteak
OI even agrees to one of the ESH (everyone sucks here) verdicts calling him out and saying that he could have just been a better person, and not repeat the same thing. But, every child is their own person after a certain point. And in a case like OI’s, they had to grow up from a very early age. So is it really fair on him to just let his parents walk all over him especially since they were so disrespectful to his dreams? Let us know in the comment!
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Attention: While many of these stories are interesting, and we would love to take their word for it, the content in this article was taken from an unverifiable source (i.e., a Reddit forum). As such, we cannot guarantee that these events truly happened in the way that they are described in the original source.