Moral obligations

maybe morality did come from morons?

Today, I attended a session by a social worker in a nursing home.

Well, she was sharing about the financial assistance that they offered, and she gave a case scenario for discussion.

An elderly lady has 2 daughters who both earn about 1k per month and both has a teenager child to take care of. Though its difficult to fork out anymore cash due to the fact that both earn very low income, daughter A has decided to try to come out with $200 per month because "she is my mother", whereas daughter B simply refuse to come out with anything. The social worker then asked, "should we help this resident then?"

So I proposed that we should see what are the reasons why daughter B refused to pay. It could be due to the fact that the mother hasn't treated her well in the past and tt's why she refused to have anything to do with her mother anymore.

I was "challenged" with "if everyone who has a sour past relationship with their parents will come to us and say because of that they don't want to pay, are we supposed to pay for everyone?"

Which, I don't deny. To cut the story short, later on she went on to say things like she will tell the daughter B that the nursing home is not related to the resident but they're helping. If she doesn't want to help as a daughter, just pay as a form of "moral obligation".

I felt like telling at her, "you obviously haven't been through tt's why you can say that", but I held back.

Well if I'm daughter B and u tell me things like "nursing home is not related but we still help" and "help as moral obligation", I will be damn offended. You've never been through the phase whereby you have to spend your scholarship to pay the bills at home when you're still young, and you have to grow up faster than your peers because you have to learn to read bills, pay for the household stuffs, work harder to pay for anything and everything, all because you have a good-for-nothing parent. Well after going through all these and more, you expect me to pay out of "moral obligation" and that even "a not related nursing home" can do more than the blood-related daughter, sorry, I can't do it. In fact, I will be even more angry and walk out altogether.

Ahh, I guess different people has got different perceptions and thus see things differently. But I believe people who never been through it will never understand how difficult it is and thus, may never empathise why people refuse to care for their parents anymore when they're old.

Some people has never let go of the hatred in their lives, and even till the deathbed of that particular parent, they may still never feel any regret. Well it could be because of all that they've been through, or simply because that "good-for-nothing" parent never changed for the better. Whatever it is, the resentment is there and after years of being let down, suddenly you have to take care of the needs of this parent again, its difficult.

Its so easy to judge a person as unfilial when they refuse to take care of the parent, send them to nursing home and don't pay for their care. But what lies behind the strong refusal to have anything to do with the parent, is something that we should always see first before being so quick to point fingers at others.