No peace for parents: they become ATM machines for kids. Many parents spoiled their children in the name of love — giving them everything except discipline and empathy.
There was a time when
parents were gods. Today, they’re a burden. The same children who once clung to
their mothers’ sarees and cried for their fathers’ comfort now treat them as
unwanted relics—obstacles standing between them and the real prize: property.
It’s a grotesque inversion of nature. Across India, one story repeats itself in
endless variations — of old parents abandoned, humiliated, or dispossessed by
the very children they raised with sacrifice, sweat and sleepless nights.
We used to pride
ourselves on our family values. We called it samskaras, culture,
tradition — the moral glue that kept generations bound by respect and
affection. Today, that glue has melted into greed. The modern Indian family,
once a fortress of loyalty, has become a battlefield over land and inheritance.
Visit any old-age
home and you’ll hear the same story, told in broken voices and tear-choked
silences. Parents who educated their sons by pawning jewellery, mothers who
starved so their daughters could wear clean uniforms, fathers who slogged 40
years to build a home — all cast aside like worn-out shoes. They are not just
forgotten; they are deliberately erased. Once the children get the property
transferred, the parents become inconvenient. A nuisance. Something to be
managed, not loved.
It is shocking how
common this has become. Children today will manipulate, lie, even forge
documents to grab property while their parents are still alive. Some make their
parents sign “gift deeds” on the pretext of tax benefits or convenience, and
the moment the ink dries, they change the locks. Aged mothers and fathers are
literally thrown out of their own homes — sleeping under temples, begging for
food, while their sons and daughters live comfortably in the houses they built.
What kind of society
produces such monsters? What kind of children bite the very hands that fed
them?
The cult of property
The new god of the
Indian household is property. It’s not love, not gratitude, not kinship — it’s real
estate. The size of your inheritance now determines the size of your worth.
Every conversation around the dinner table eventually circles back to assets,
wills, and shares. Families that once gathered to celebrate together now gather
to scheme.
The disease runs deep. Brothers drag each other to court.
Sisters refuse to speak. Parents die fighting cases filed by their own
children. In many urban homes, the son’s wife subtly becomes the instigator —
whispering about how “unfair” it is that the parents still control the
property. Soon enough, the son’s affection hardens into entitlement. He starts
viewing his parents not as human beings but as obstacles to his financial
freedom.
It’s not just the rich or upper middle class. Even among
modest families, the same rot has set in. Land, pension money, even a small
ancestral home — anything that can be monetised becomes a trigger for betrayal.
The virus of greed knows no class, no geography, no education. It infects
everyone who worships money more than morality.
In earlier times, old
age was a crown of honour. Today it’s a curse. Young people see their parents
as liabilities — another bill to pay, another problem to manage. Some children
visit their parents out of guilt; others avoid them altogether. The elderly are
left alone in crumbling houses or shoved into so-called “senior homes” where
they count the days until death.
The tragedy is not just abandonment — it’s the loss of
dignity. These are people who spent their best years nurturing their children,
providing security, dreaming of their success. Now, in return, they receive
silence, indifference, or worse, cruelty. They are emotionally starved,
financially trapped, and socially invisible.
How easily we forget. Who sat by your bedside when you had
fever? Who walked miles to pay your school fees? Who worked overtime so you
could go to college? And yet, when they falter with age, you suddenly find them
“difficult.” You want the car, the house, the plot — but not the people who
built it all.
The moral collapse
What we are
witnessing is not just a social problem — it’s a moral collapse. The family,
once India’s greatest institution, is imploding under the weight of
selfishness. The new generation is educated, employed, and worldly-wise — but
emotionally bankrupt. Compassion has been replaced by calculation. Gratitude
has been replaced by greed.
Even religion has
become a joke. Children who light lamps in temples have no qualms about
throwing their parents out on the street. They bow before idols but ignore the
living gods who gave them life. Mammon rules the roost — money has become the
supreme deity, and everything else, including love, is just collateral damage.
We’ve glamorised
selfishness in the name of independence. “My life, my space, my choice” has
become the anthem of a generation that confuses freedom with callousness. Yes,
parents must not control their adult children’s lives — but there’s a
difference between independence and inhumanity.
The government, to
its credit, has laws like the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior
Citizens Act. On paper, it empowers parents to claim maintenance or evict
abusive children from their property. In reality, few parents have the heart or
stamina to drag their own children to court. They live in hope that things will
change — that love will return, that their children will realise their folly.
But most die waiting.
The system too is
sluggish. Cases drag on for years, and in the end, justice, even when
delivered, comes too late. A society that forces old parents to seek legal
protection against their own children has already lost its soul. No amount of
law can replace the moral duty that should come naturally.
Parents don’t expect
luxury in old age. They want peace — a small space of respect, a little warmth,
a kind word, the assurance that their life’s sacrifices meant something. But
for many, that’s a dream. Their phones don’t ring. Their doors don’t open. Festivals
come and go, but no one visits. The loneliness is suffocating. Psychologists
warn that emotional neglect can kill faster than disease. The stress,
depression, and heartbreak many elderly parents face silently is staggering.
They wither away not because their bodies are weak, but because their hearts
are broken.
We taught our
children how to earn, but not how to care. We made them engineers, doctors,
coders — but forgot to make them human beings. We obsessed over grades,
careers, and possessions, but ignored the lesson of gratitude.
Our schools produce
toppers, not nurturers. Our society celebrates wealth, not wisdom. Our films
glorify rebellion, not responsibility. We are raising a generation that can
build skyscrapers but cannot build relationships.
Parents too are
partly to blame. Many spoiled their children in the name of love — giving them
everything except discipline and empathy. They forgot that love without limits
breeds entitlement. And now, those entitled children are returning the favour —
by claiming everything and giving nothing.
India once prided
itself on its spiritual depth — the idea that family was sacred and parents
were divine. That foundation is crumbling. The new religion is materialism. The
new god is the bank balance. The new prayer is “What’s in it for me?” We talk
of progress, but what kind of progress is this — where old parents cry
themselves to sleep in government shelters while their children flaunt luxury
cars bought with inherited money? What kind of “modernity” justifies betrayal?
There’s a saying: The
most painful tears are shed in silence. Every night, thousands of ageing
parents across this country shed those tears — unseen, unheard, unacknowledged.
Their children sleep soundly, unbothered, perhaps even congratulating
themselves for “moving on.”
A call to conscience
Let’s be blunt: if
you neglect or torment your parents, no success will ever make you truly happy.
You may inherit their property, but you will also inherit their curse. You can
fool society, but not your conscience. Sooner or later, you’ll face the same
fate — because karma has a perfect sense of timing.
To the younger
generation: your parents are not your ATM machines. They are not your servants.
They are the reason you exist. One day, you too will grow old. And when that
day comes, you’ll realise that no wealth, no property, no “freedom” can replace
the warmth of family.
To the parents: stop
surrendering everything in the name of love. Keep control of your property,
protect your dignity, and don’t sign a single paper without understanding its
consequences. Love your children, but don’t be naïve. The times have changed.
It’s not too late to
fix this. Families can still heal — but it starts with honesty. We must teach
children empathy as seriously as we teach them English. Schools must talk about
values, not just marks. Communities must create spaces where elders are heard,
not hidden. But above all, every individual must look in the mirror and ask: What
kind of human am I becoming?
Because no
civilisation collapses from outside — it collapses from within. And the sight
of old parents abandoned and cheated by their own blood is the surest sign that
our moral collapse has begun. Money will buy comfort. Property will buy power.
But neither will buy peace — not when the ghosts of your parents’ tears still
haunt you.
In the end, the truth is simple and brutal: A society that
doesn’t respect its parents doesn’t deserve a future.