by Ember Roberts

Created on: March 05, 2010

Ah. And the age-old excuse returns. I could quite easily sit back now and say, "Mother, I am clinically depressed and unable to deal with it. And it's all your fault." There. The blame is passed. I can now continue screwing up without feeling guilty.

Except, it's not that easy. I am afraid I seem to have grown up; I am aware of the fact that ultimately I am my own person.

Yes, it is true that the child is an extension of the parent. Children are invariably affected by how they are bought up and made to understand the world. But part of the transition into adulthood is learning to question those statements which we have been taught as reality. One of the main reasons why adolescence is such a difficult time (G. Stanley Hall's definition of it as a time of "storm and stress" works wonderfully here) is because, as teenagers, we begin to doubt things that were before perceived as true.

Perhaps, at a stretch, we can blame our parents for who we become. My anxiety disorder has been linked to the actions of my mother; my brother's emotional incapacity is a reaction to overtly-emotional parents. However, parents are not responsible for how their children chose to handle who they are.

I could easily decide to lock myself in a room and never leave again because I am scared of what is outside. That wouldn't be my mother's fault. As we grow older, responsibility shifts from our parents to us. My other life experiences - school, work, relationships - have all effected who I am and can all explain why I chose to lock myself in a room. I can blame the world in general, if I feel it'll help. Blaming my mother would just be evil.

Onto the matter of psychotic behaviour in adults. Should parents be held responsible for their adult children's actions? Children aren't collies. They aren't easily trained. Each is born with their own personality and the parents can't be held accountable if that personality turns out to be volatile. That would be like punishing the trainer when a prize dog learns to bite. There are some things that parent's simply cannot control and it is inevitable that their children will pick up bad habits from other people.

If the trainer abused that dog, that would be another matter. But child abuse and its consequences are, in my opinion, a different topic all together; after all, the people in question are monsters, not parents. 

In conclusion: by all means, hold parents responsible for the actions of their adult children. I agree that they are responsible for helping their child deal with any consequences; that is part of being a parent. But there is no sustainable argument for parents being held accountable for something their grown-up child does. 

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