My first impulse was to agree...for the sake of symmetry, to keep the peace, for equality, to avoid any talk about responsibility...you name it.
The truth is: I don't agree with that statement. In fact, I would like to emphasize my belief that all responsibility is on the parents' and none on the children. I would also like to emphasize that, of course, a large part of the social function of parenting is to instill in our children the need for and joys of responsibility. A joyful responsibility that, perhaps, even extends to us, their parents. However, it must never be something they owe to us. And, likewise, it must never be something they owe to us.
I would like to ensure that whatever I do and will do for my parents in the future will most definitely come from a place of love not a place of owing. This I consider to be a direct result of my parents' overall attempt to make sure I did not feel I owed them anything.
In the most naturalistic sense parents owe their children protection, nurturance, clothing, education. This really is not a true "owing" rather it is a kind of "forcing" that takes place. Nature forces parents to take care of their off-spring. At least this holds true for most mammals and birds. Everything a young animal cannot instinctually take care of by herself nature forces the parent to take care of. The fewer instincts a young mammal is equipped with the more nature forces the parent to protect, etc. Human babies happen to be part of the group of mammals with the least amount of strong healthy instincts. This means that the amount of care-taking, responsibility and protection that falls to the parents is immense.
Of course, the trouble is that the instinct to parent is itself one that is highly fragile. For most animal species the instinct to parent ends when the parent is in danger. Nature observes quite strict rules about whose survival is more important: that of the parent or that of the child/young animal. Often the vote goes in favor of the parent who will likely be able to reproduce again soon (while a young animal would take longer to do the same).
Since many survival instincts in human babies (and children) are so few and since parenting instincts are so fragile many societies and cultures have developed quite complex systems rituals and rules to supplement the weak instinct structure with which humans are naturally equipped. The goal of these systems is simply to ensure the survival of our off-spring and, in so doing, to stabilize the ground-work for a culture to survive and grow.
At this point a person might ask "But what about love?" The implication of this question likely is that all this talk about instincts and nature overlooks the most essential element in human parenting: love.
It is true, love can be a powerful and almost unconquerable element in human parent-child interactions. The trouble with it is, though, while nature has a process to move us toward love, i.e., to get us hormonally ready for being parents (and children), this process is often not completed (or hardly begun). We loosely refer to this process as attachment and bonding. When it works (when there is room for it to take place and it is not seriously disrupted) its results often are overwhelmingly positive for the parent, the child and, later, society. But attachment itself is a vulnerable process. Many things can disrupt, interrupt or end it. One way to summarize those many things is to call them by the label "exaggerated stress." When exaggerated stress interferes with the attachment process, this could be stress for either parent or child (or both), love either doesn't take hold at all or it pops up here and there in glimpses of itself, without ever forming the solid love foundation on which a child can grow (up) and on which a parent can parent. In other words, love is vulnerable.
This means: Much depends on how well we are able to protect the process of attachment--our own and that of other parents and their children.
Because the instinctual system of human parent-child attachment is so vulnerable human beings have for centuries used rituals, traditions and laws to further ensure and regulate the safety of the parent-child relationship. Especially in the 20th and 21st century an overwhelming majority of this body of cultural agreements on parent-child responsibility focuses on the responsibility of the parent toward the child not the child's responsibility toward the parent. Moreover, while they likely ensure a certain amount of family stability, these laws ultimately cannot generate love in the strong attachment sense discussed above. They are, in other words, a weak substitute for what could be, if we were able and inclined to protect the attachment process.
So, do parents "owe" anything to their children? I am inclined to say that, after this long reflection on responsibility and attachment, "owing" is not the correct term to describe the parents' role. Parenting is a responsibility, A kind of response in other words to the growing existence of a child in their lives. This response is partially guided by natural factors, instincts, behavioral patterns, etc. as much as cultural patterns of child-rearing. However, this response is also quite susceptible to disruptions. Such disruptions may lead to the withering away of any responsiveness to the existence of children in a person's life. My sense is that the use of the term "owing" has much to do with just that susceptibility to disruptions. "owing" establishes a moral responsibility over a natural one. "Owing" is meant to summon us to the task of parenting when our natural instincts have gone out.
It is interesting to reflect for a moment on the difference between "owing" and "owning." What would it be like to understand that owing is simply a poor substitute for owning? Could we begin to see that parenting is "owning" the task of parenting rather than "owing" it? Of course, if we own parenting all feelings of "owing" something would dissipate. Neither society at large nor our children specifically would be turned into our creditors (to whom we owe something). Owning means we do it for ourselves. This is not a turn towards selfish parenting. Rather it is a turn toward sustained motivated (not ambitious) parenting. Parenting that comes from a deeply felt urge to procreate, nurture and protect.
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