Which country are you in, cause in the west, parents owe their children many things such as food, shelter, clothing, and education. Morally you owe her nothing unless there was a loan I guess.
this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2026
16 points (90.0% liked)
Mental Health
6873 readers
245 users here now
Welcome
This is a safe place to discuss, vent, support, and share information about mental health, illness, and wellness.
Thank you for being here. We appreciate who you are today. Please show respect and empathy when making or replying to posts.
If you need someone to talk to, @therapygary@lemmy.blahaj.zone has kindly given his signal username to talk to: TherapyGary13.12
Rules
The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:
- No promoting paid services/products.
- Be kind and civil. No bigotry/prejudice either.
- No victim blaming. Nor giving incredibly simplistic solutions (i.e. You have ADHD? Just focus easier.)
- No encouraging suicide, no matter what. This includes telling someone to commit homicide as "dragging them down with you".
- Suicide note posts will be removed, and you will be reached out to in private.
- If you would like advice, mention the country you are in. (We will not assume the US as the default.)
If BRIEF mention of these topics is an important part of your post, please flag your post as NSFW and include a (trigger warning: suicide, self-harm, death, etc.)in the title so that other readers who may feel triggered can avoid it. Please also include a trigger warning on all comments mentioning these topics in a post that was not already tagged as such.
Partner Communities
To partner with our community and be included here, you are free to message the current moderators or comment on our pinned post.
Becoming a Mod
Some moderators are mental health professionals and some are not. All are carefully selected by the moderation team and will be actively monitoring posts and comments. If you are interested in joining the team, you can send a message to @fxomt@lemmy.dbzer0.com.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
I was born in Mainland China, now living in the US.
I think the general sentinment in China is the kids owe their parents, especially their mother, for the fact that she gave birth... and also for basic things like feeding them and providing shelter and safety.
My mom taught me: “世上只有妈妈好” ("Only your mother is good" or something like that... it's a lulluby thing and told me to distrust everyone else and only listen to her)
I actually remember in a World Language class in highschool (in the US), so obviously I pick the easiest, I already know a bit of Chinese from when I was in school in China, and I had this Chinese/Taiwanese (forgot which one) teacher that explained the difference between Asia and the West.
Somthing like: In Asia, the children owes their parents, in the West the parents owe their kids...
And like I remember during class I was kinda just half-daydreaming and thinking about stuff... and like... it kinda just hit me...
Like... It's such a stark contrast in philosophy
My head just hurt so much, no amount of therapy can fix my fucked up brain from all these years...
My older brother is a conspiracy nutjob and a racist ethnic supremacist, all thanks to my parents, and they're suprised how he turned out that way when their philosophy/politics is already half way there.
Literally, like the first thing I was told by my mom right after we landed in JFK airport was that "CPS = Bad" don't talk to them...
(edit: CPS = Child Protective Services, US)
I mean, sure I don't trust authorities either... but...
Red flag much?
Have any parents actually told their kids that "CPS is bad"
I mean... i don't even know anymore
Government is scary
Parents are scary
School is scary
Your peers are scary and will bully you
Outside is scary
This is what I learned from my existence in life
I'm sorry you've had to experience such suffering.
Seeing this first hand with a 1st generation immigrant mother(not mine) I am getting to know as an adult.
The western philosophy is a bit different than it was explained. In the West the parents are responsible for the kids. They brought them into the world and they are responsible for raising them to be productive members of society. You don't owe the kids, but you do have to raise them and look after them. If you don't cps goes after the adult.
Behaving as your mom does is being asked to be treated like a child or a baby while still demanding the respect of being an adult.
Same on an Indian forum. They'd all blame me. They blamed me for not learning their language. I didn't refuse to learn it, they didn't teach me properly and the lagoons I got were on reading and writing, not speaking and understand. I could read any books but had no idea what it meant and lost it. I was in a taxi and the guy asked where I was from. When he's said he spoke to me in that language and I said I don't understand. He asked me how that happened and I said my parents didn't teach me. He literally said to me that it wasn't their fault and that it I wanted to, I could learn quickly, blaming me effectively.
Luckily for me, it was mainly my dad. My mum was like that for some things but not as bad. Made it more bearable than lots of people I know.
Everything you said resonates unfortunately. The worst for me was my dad paid for my first year of rent at university. He kept bringing that up years later for any little thing.
I learned to just avoid doing things, do a bad job or forget to reduce what they ask for. I don't ask or expect anything in return, which has it's own problems though as I try to do too much myself and don't trust/rely on others which harms me long term.
The worst for me was my dad paid for my first year of rent at university. He kept bringing that up years later for any little thing.
Lol, I was born because my mom violated the One Child Policy (cuz I'm the 2nd child) and my mom keeps telling me about it and the massive fine they have to pay as guilt tripping. She said that I "wasted her so much money the moment I was born" 😭 ... so it's my fault for a stupid government policy? 🫠
Ooof, that's bad!
I get the "why are you so western, what's wrong with you, why do you want to do what your friends do instead of what I tell you", erm, well you came over to this country and had kids, we were one of very few Indians or any other minority, where they chose to move to from a fairly diverse area they lived in before just before I was born - yes of course it's my fault completely!