Deeply embedded a cultural meme as it is, one still wonders whether caring for elderly parents was always the norm. In this regard we might ask why the ghost writer of the Ten Commandments felt compelled put in number four (or five, depending on the sources), “honour thy father and mother?” I should point out here that I avoid the terms “Almighty,” “God,” and other bits of hyperbole, as I’d be embarrassed attributing authorship to invisible entities. I’m supposing number four had something to do with a prevailing can’t-wait-to-see-them-croak attitude. That is, when the good, pre-commandment folk weren’t actively hastening the dying process, which may have been one of the sins that closed down the fun cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Another hint that taking care of our parents may be but the product of Bronze Age marketing is that no other species does so. Humans are the only crowd to openly suffer the long drawn out and often costly dying process of their progenitors. Elephants might appear to be weeping over their dead elders but there’s as yet no evidence that they coddle them in old elephantidae groves to the bitter end. This human behaviour is all the more baffling as there are no survival advantages, after they reach a certain age, for progeny to keep the old folk around. Indeed, there are unusually strong material reasons to urge them to the grave; the longer they stay around the more resources they use, resources which would otherwise go to the impatient, spendthrift offspring.

So, why has this obviously unusual and wasteful tendency persisted and grown into a moral obligation? Well, if it’s not nature – evolution and natural selection – then it has to be nurture – the code word for imposed behaviour. Someone, probably a series of someones, some time ago, must have thought this indifference, if not downright hostility towards parents was not a good thing. That is, not a good thing for the common people. The 1% of long ago never really took to this quaint notion. Take Henry II, FitzEmpress (or Curtmantle), the 12^th century Plantagenet king of England. Ask him about filial loyalty and respect. His three sons, Henry Jr., Richard and Geoffrey, aided and abetted by mom, Eleanor of Aquitaine, launched several major revolts against dad, which the old guy was able to put down only with much serious military action. And what did dad do? He forgave them.

Henry’s tale of filial disappointment makes it obvious that the parent-child relationship instinct is not quite symmetrical. The parents, at least subconsciously, view their progeny in a survival context: the children will pass on my genes. For the children, parents are less than useless, that is after they’ve kept the children alive and safe until they are able to fend for themselves. When they no longer procreate and so do not provide siblings for their team in life’s competitions, parents are just sponging precious resources.

So, again, why would the thugs who ran early societies when these unnatural rules were developed want to include “honour thy parents?” There are probably a thousand complicated answers to this simple question. I rather like the one about the economic advantage to the early potentates of having larger societies. These bigger entities provided more workers to exploit and, very important at the time, more soldiers to fight the nobility’s wars of acquisition. But to have larger societies meant the rulers had to keep the common folk from killing each other. Which brings me back to the Ten Commandments.

In fact, there is only the One Commandment, “thou shalt not kill.” However, at the time of the earliest known civilizations, like the Sumerian, with its largest city, Ur, just telling people not to kill was insufficient. Most people would think this a good idea but would also think there are all sorts of exceptions; like someone coveting their ass or their wife’s ass or maybe skewering someone because they’re making off with your prize hen, or……. You get the idea. So, the best solution, when everyone is looking for an excuse to poke holes in their neighbours, is to spell out all the circumstances which were most likely to end in homicide. And then ban that behaviour which would lead to those circumstances.

While all the commandments are strictures of the “thou shalt not” variety, “honour thy parents,” stands out as positive rule. I suppose that the common practice of pushing parents to the grave to help them out of the drudge of brutish Bronze Age life was a dirty little secret no one wanted openly aired. But common practice, whether by commission or omission, it most certainly was.

Knowing that it is unnatural for children to fall over themselves to help out the parents, may not be enough to quell the grave disappointment parents feel each time their offspring but grudgingly come to their aid. Being but human we are prisoners of our expectations and these are based on a sense of entitlement. We have given them our sweat, patience, understanding and, of course, our hard earned shekels and now we want payback.

Well, know this. If you expect payback then its best to stop giving when the child becomes an adult, unless, of course, martyrdom is your thing. Accept the truth that anything parents do for children up until adulthood is an obligation born of the initial decision to procreate. It was a decision in which the child did not have a say. It was also a decision to survive by creating a gene transmission vehicle. In the end either reason is sufficient to create a parental obligation to nurture and protect. But this obligation is by no means open ended. It naturally ends at adulthood.  After that there is no responsibility to give to adult children and continuing to do so is not a good idea if it creates expectations of future payback or, indeed, love. There is no natural reciprocity in this one-sided relationship.

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