Blessing Eleven:
Cherishing our parents
Cherishing our parents
F. Reciprocal Relationship between Parent & Child
From the Siṅgalovāda Sutta we learn that a child has duties towards his parents and parents have duties towards their children (see detail Blessing Twelve @B.3). In the ideal world, both the parents and the children will fulfil their side of the bargain and in doing so, no danger will grow up in the relationship or for society at large — there will be happiness and prosperity both for parent, child and society at large.
If the child fulfils their duty according to Blessing Eleven but the parent doesn’t fulfil their duty according to Blessing Twelve, harm will come to the parents and eventually to the child and society as well. There are some exceptional cases where a child has been so mistreated at the hands of his own parents that he or she finds it near impossible to imagine anything good about their parents. In such a case, we must remind ourselves that even if our parents abandon us at birth, we still have a huge debt of gratitude to them for giving us our physical form as a human. In a case where one has been beaten or abused by one’s parents, it is important to make a separation between the good things they have done to you and the bad. We must repay our debt of gratitude for the good things and do our best to forgive the bad things, without mixing them up or thinking that one cancels out the other. Sometimes a dutiful son or daughter knows that giving their parents money will only fuel them into doing irresponsible things (like gambling) — in such cases, they should still be supported, but the support should be in the form of food or clothing that they cannot change into money. Such parents should be treated like a patient who is ill and sometimes can not be given what they crave for — but our parents should never be insulted by us because of their weaknesses.
If the parents fulfil their duty according to Blessing Twelve, but the child does not fulfil their duty according to Blessing Eleven, harm will come to the child and eventually to the parents and society as well.
If the child doesn’t do their duty according to Blessing Eleven and the parents don’t fulfil their duty according to Blessing Twelve, immediate harm will come to both and to society too.
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