How greed for money and property has poisoned the bond between parents and children

 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.