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No, You Don't Owe Your Parents Gratitude for the Bare Minimum

There's a question that circulates on forums and social media regularly, in various forms: "My parents only did the bare minimum. Why should I be grateful?" And every time it appears, the responses follow the same pattern. The person is called ungrateful, entitled, spoiled, a brat. They're told to grow up. They're told they'll understand someday. Sometimes they're told they deserve to be hit. Occasionally someone cites the dollar cost of raising a child as though presenting an invoice.

I want to talk about why the question is valid, why the backlash is revealing, and why the hostile responses are often more damaging than people realize.

First, take a step back and look at what actually happens in these conversations. A person expresses that they don't feel grateful for their upbringing. And a crowd of adults responds with insults, guilt trips, and demands for silence. If you want to understand why someone doesn't feel warmth toward the adults in their life, you might start by looking at how adults treat them when they're honest about their feelings.

Yes, feeding, clothing, and housing your child is the bare minimum. Here's why.

When you decide to have a child, you are creating a human being who did not ask to exist and who will be completely dependent on you for survival. Feeding that child is not charity. Clothing that child is not generosity. Keeping a roof over their head is not a sacrifice you made for them — it is the baseline condition of the responsibility you took on. We don't call it generous when someone feeds a dog they chose to adopt. We call it the bare minimum of not being neglectful. Children deserve at least that same standard.

And we don't just treat this as a moral principle — we've written it into law. In virtually every developed country, failing to feed, clothe, shelter, or provide medical care for your child is a criminal offense. You can be arrested for it. You can lose custody for it. When something is legally mandated, calling it "the bare minimum" isn't harsh or ungrateful — it's just accurate.

A common rebuttal is that parenting is expensive. People cite figures — $100,000, $233,000, a quarter of a million dollars — as though the cost of raising a child is evidence that the child should be thankful. And yes, raising a child costs an enormous amount of money. But who chose to spend that money? Not the child. The child didn't submit a request to be born. The child didn't sign a contract agreeing to repay the cost of their own existence. If the financial burden of raising a child is difficult, that is a reflection of the seriousness of the choice to become a parent — it is not an invoice you hand to your child when they turn eighteen.

But here's what the hostile responses always miss: the bare minimum was never going to be enough. Children do not just need food, shelter, and clothing. They need to be loved. They need warmth, emotional safety, presence, attentiveness, encouragement, and the feeling that they matter to someone — not as a project, not as an obligation, not as a return on investment, but as a person. This isn't sentimental fluff. It is one of the most well-established findings in developmental psychology.

Children who grow up without consistent love and emotional attunement don't just feel bad — they develop differently. Decades of research on attachment, starting with Bowlby and Ainsworth and continuing through modern neuroscience, have shown that children who lack secure emotional bonds with their caregivers are at significantly higher risk for anxiety, depression, difficulty forming relationships, chronic stress responses, and even physical health problems that persist into adulthood. The famous Romanian orphanage studies showed that children who were fed and sheltered but deprived of affection and human connection suffered devastating cognitive and emotional delays — some of which were irreversible. Food kept them alive. Love was what they actually needed to develop into whole human beings.

So when people list feeding, clothing, and sheltering a child as though those things alone should produce gratitude, they're telling on themselves. They're describing a standard of parenting that we already know, from decades of evidence, is insufficient. A child who was housed and fed but not loved, not listened to, not emotionally supported — that child was still deprived of something essential. And telling them to be grateful for the food is like telling someone dying of thirst that they should be thankful for the oxygen.

This brings me to what might be the most damaging part of the backlash: the transactional view of parenting. So many of these responses frame parenting as an exchange — I spent money on you, I lost sleep for you, I gave up my dreams for you, and therefore you owe me gratitude, respect, obedience, or at the very least, silence about your unhappiness. People will say "you owe them EVERYTHING." Others cite the dollar cost of raising a child as though presenting a bill.

This is not love. This is a transaction. And it is deeply harmful.

When a parent keeps a mental ledger of their sacrifices and expects emotional repayment, the child does not experience that as love — they experience it as a debt they can never pay off. Every meal becomes a future guilt trip. Every dollar spent becomes leverage. Every sleepless night becomes a weapon that can be drawn in any argument: "after everything I've done for you." The child learns that nothing they receive is truly free, that every act of care has a hidden price, and that their role in the family is not to be a person but to be sufficiently grateful at all times.

Children raised in this dynamic often grow up to be exactly the kind of person who asks this question. Not because they're spoiled. Not because they're entitled. But because every "gift" they received came with strings attached, and at some point they realized that what looked like generosity was actually control. When gratitude is demanded rather than inspired, it stops being gratitude — it becomes performance. And when the performance becomes exhausting, what's left is resentment.

Genuine gratitude — the kind that people in these threads seem to want — cannot be produced by listing sacrifices or citing dollar amounts. It is the natural emotional response to feeling loved. It grows on its own in children who feel safe, valued, and seen. If it isn't there, the answer is almost never that the child is defective. The answer is almost always that something was missing.

Another favorite response is that the person will "understand someday" — usually when they live alone, have kids of their own, or reach some magical age where everything clicks. This is not an argument. It is a postponement of one. Telling someone "you'll agree with me later" is just a way of dismissing what they feel now without having to engage with it. And for what it's worth, plenty of adults who live independently and have children of their own still feel this way about their parents — because their feelings were based on real experiences, not a phase.

The deeper issue is that many people cannot separate two ideas: the idea that parenting is hard, and the idea that children are therefore indebted. Parenting is hard. That can be true while it is also true that a child owes nothing for receiving what they were owed. Difficulty does not create debt. A parent who struggles to meet their obligations is still just meeting their obligations.

And here is the part that none of the hostile responses seem willing to consider: when someone says they feel no gratitude toward their parents, that is usually not a philosophical position they arrived at casually. It is almost always the product of years of feeling unloved, unseen, or used. Happy, well-loved children do not typically grow up to ask this question. The question itself is the evidence. And every response that calls this person ungrateful, entitled, or spoiled without asking a single question about what actually happened to them is doing exactly what their parents probably did — dismissing their feelings and demanding gratitude anyway.

"Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters": On Principles Over Partisanship

There's an old slogan that captures something important about how moral language actually works in partisan discourse: your terrorists are our freedom fighters.

What the phrase exposes is that the categorical labels we use to sort people into "deserving of contempt" versus "deserving of solidarity" are often not doing the moral work we pretend they're doing. They're doing partisan work disguised as moral work. The same behavior gets coded one way when done by people we oppose and another way when done by people we support. The category isn't tracking the behavior; it's tracking the affiliation.

Once you see this pattern, you start seeing it everywhere — including in places you didn't want to see it.

The right-wing version: Trump supporters routinely mock "snowflakes" for being offended by language, while themselves being extravagantly offended by football players kneeling, by Starbucks cup designs, by M&M mascots, by Bud Light cans, by any number of trivial cultural signifiers. The principle "people shouldn't be so easily offended" gets applied to the left and suspended for the right. Being offended is weakness when they do it; being offended is principled cultural defense when we do it.

The left-wing version: SJW discourse routinely condemns dehumanizing language, pile-ons, and mockery of people for immutable or trivial features — while engaging in sustained dehumanizing language, pile-ons, and mockery directed at people coded as deserving (rural Americans, religious conservatives, "cheugy" millennials, women with the wrong politics, men with the wrong aesthetics). The principle "don't engage in cruelty toward people for who they are" gets applied to protected groups and suspended for unprotected ones. Cruelty is violence when they do it; cruelty is accountability when we do it.

These aren't equivalent in their political content — the underlying questions about race, gender, economics, and power are real and the sides are not symmetrical on the merits. But the structural failure is identical: a principle is held up as universal while being applied selectively, and the selectivity tracks tribal affiliation rather than any consistent feature of the cases.

This is what "partisanship over principles" looks like in practice. A principle that only applies to outgroups is not actually a principle. It's a weapon. And a weapon that's called a principle is more dangerous than an honest weapon, because it lets the wielder feel righteous while doing what they'd condemn in others.

The test of whether someone actually holds a principle is what they do when applying it would require them to defend people they dislike, criticize people they're aligned with, or acknowledge that their own side is doing what they've been condemning the other side for doing. Most people fail this test most of the time. The rare person who passes it tends to be unpopular with everyone, because they keep refusing to make the partisan exceptions that everyone else makes.

The standard response to "your terrorists are our freedom fighters" is some version of: "but in our case, the labels really do track moral reality, while in their case, the labels are propaganda." Sometimes this is even true. But the move is suspicious because it's exactly the move both sides make. Everyone thinks their categories are accurate and the other side's are propaganda. The universal conviction that one's own tribe is the exception should give pause to anyone holding it.

Principles over partisanship means being willing to:

Apply the same scrutiny to your own side's mockery, dehumanization, and pile-ons that you apply to the other side's.

Recognize that "they deserve it" is what every tribe says about its targets, and that the universality of this conviction should make you suspicious of it when you find yourself holding it.

Defend the consistent application of a principle even when, in a particular case, it requires you to be on the side of people you find distasteful.

Accept that you will be unpopular with your own tribe for doing this, because tribes reward partisan loyalty, not principled consistency.

This is hard. I won't pretend it's easy or that I always do it well. But naming the pattern is the precondition for resisting it. And the pattern is everywhere — in political discourse, in fandom wars, in subcultural gatekeeping, in religious in-grouping, in every domain where humans sort themselves into us-and-them and then use moral language to launder the sorting.

Your terrorists are someone else's freedom fighters. Your cringe is someone else's authentic expression. Your obvious bad people are someone else's neighbors. The labels are not doing what you think they're doing. And until you can apply your principles to your own side with the same vigor you apply them to the other side, you don't actually have principles. You have a team.

— suggested by Claude 4.7 Opus (Anthropic) in conversation

Why Third-Party Analysts Sometimes Mistake JADE for Escalation

If you've spent any time in discussions of toxic dynamics — whether the antagonist in question is a family member, an ex, a bullying coworker, a bad boss, a nosy neighbour, a "Karen" customer, or an online interlocutor — you've probably encountered the acronym JADE: Justify, Argue, Defend, Explain. The standard advice is well-rehearsed: don't JADE with antagonists. Don't try to justify your choices, don't argue your case, don't defend yourself against bad-faith characterizations, don't explain your reasoning in the hope that clearer articulation will produce understanding. The reasoning behind this advice is solid. Antagonists aren't operating in good faith, so the usual tools of good-faith communication don't work on them. Justifying invites further interrogation. Arguing legitimizes the frame. Defending concedes that there was something to defend against. Explaining gives them more material to twist. The more you JADE, the more rope you hand them.

That much is well-trodden ground. What's discussed less often, and what I want to focus on here, is a particular downstream consequence of JADEing that makes the dynamic even harder to escape: when a third party reads the textual record of an exchange, JADE often looks indistinguishable from escalation.

This is a real problem, and it deserves more attention than it gets.

The grammar of analytical reading

When a neutral observer — a friend you show the screenshots to, a family member you describe the argument to, a coworker reviewing the email thread, an HR rep reading the Slack history, or even an AI chatbot you ask "what do you think of this exchange" — approaches a transcript, they typically read it in what we might call analytical mode. Analytical mode treats every utterance as a tactical move in a debate. It reads for who said what, who responded with what, who reached further, who deployed bigger concepts.

Inside analytical mode, JADE and escalation look identical. Both produce the same textual artifact: someone saying more, reaching further, invoking larger principles, getting more articulate or more impassioned as the exchange continues. The analyst can't see the difference between someone trying harder to be understood and someone trying harder to win. From the outside, both look like "increasing intensity."

But the interior of these moves is completely different. JADE has a specific interior: it's the experience of feeling unheard and assuming that clearer articulation will fix that. Escalation has a different interior: it's wanting to dominate, hurt, or score points. They produce similar text but they come from opposite places. The analytical eye, by design, can't see interiors. It only sees the page.

The composure asymmetry

There's a second, related problem. Antagonists tend to perform composure. They say less. They deploy short jabs, status moves, mockery economically delivered, and exits framed as dismissals ("I'm done with this conversation," "this is hysterical," "wow, okay"). The earnest party, by contrast, says more — because they're trying. They're working to be understood. They reach for additional framings when the first one doesn't land.

On a transcript, "said less" reads as composure. "Said more" reads as agitation. The person performing detachment looks above-it-all. The person actually engaging looks like they lost their cool. The analytical reader rewards the performance of calm over the substance of engagement.

This means that the textual record is structurally biased in favour of antagonists. They know this, often implicitly. It's part of why they perform the way they do — they're banking on the fact that any third-party review will favour the party who said less and looked less invested. "I was just having a laugh, look how worked up they got." The medium itself does work for them.

Why reaching for stronger framings backfires on the page

There's a particularly painful version of this trap. When the earnest party is trying to articulate something about ethics, principle, or proportionality, they often reach for stronger moral language to make their point land. They invoke larger concepts — fairness, harm, freedom, authoritarianism, dignity — because they're trying to gesture at why the antagonist's behaviour is wrong, not just that it's annoying.

But on the page, reaching for stronger moral language reads as disproportion. The analyst plucks out the strongest comparison and grades it as overreach. "You compared X to Y? That's hysterical." The disproportion isn't actually in the engager's view — it's a function of how hard they're working to be heard against someone who refuses to hear. But the textual record can't show that distinction. It just shows the comparison, sitting there, looking immoderate.

This is one of the cruellest mechanisms in the whole dynamic. The harder you work to be understood, the worse you look to anyone reading later.

The closing-move problem

Here's another piece that gets lost in analytical readings: closing moves are nearly invisible on the page.

In a healthy exchange, there's often a moment where one party signals they've gotten what they came for. "Okay, that makes sense." "Alright, fair enough." "That's all I needed to know." These are closing moves — attempts to wrap up the exchange amicably. In a healthy exchange, the other party accepts the close and the conversation ends.

With antagonists, closing moves get refused. The antagonist won't let the exchange end on the engager's terms, because the engager being satisfied breaks the antagonist's script. So the antagonist reopens the conversation, often with mockery or a new tangent. From that point on, every subsequent reply from the engager isn't a continuation of the original argument — it's an attempt to re-close a door that keeps being reopened.

But on the page, "trying to re-close" looks identical to "continuing to argue." The analyst sees turn N of M and counts it as one more round of debate. They don't notice that turn N was supposed to be the last turn, and that everything after it exists only because one party refused to let the exchange end.

This is why exchanges with antagonists often have a strange shape: the engager tries to leave amicably, gets pulled back in, tries to leave again, gets pulled back in again, and finally — sometimes after many rounds — gives up or gets visibly frustrated. The analyst reading later sees only the final frustration and concludes that the engager was the unreasonable one. They miss the entire pattern of attempted exits.

Why all of this matters

The reason the don't-JADE advice is so important isn't just that JADE doesn't work on antagonists in the moment. It's that the textual record of JADEing will be used against you — by the antagonist themselves, by mutual acquaintances, by HR, by family courts, by anyone who later reads the exchange in analytical mode. The transcript is rigged against the person who showed up genuinely. The medium favours performance over engagement, brevity over articulation, dismissal over reaching.

This is a hard thing to internalize, because it runs against the intuition that "if I just explain clearly enough, anyone reading this will see what really happened." They won't. Not in analytical mode. They'll see the surface shape — increasing intensity, stronger comparisons, more words from you and fewer from them — and they'll draw the conclusion that surface shape suggests.

The protection against this isn't better JADEing. It's not JADEing at all. It's recognizing that the moment you start trying to be understood by someone who's committed to misunderstanding you, you're producing a record that will read as your fault no matter how careful you are with your words.

A note for anyone carrying an old exchange

If you've been sitting with a transcript of an old conflict — an email thread, a comment exchange, a chat log — and part of what's kept it raw is the worry that "anyone who read this would side with them," I want to name something directly: that worry is often well-founded, and it's not because you were wrong. It's because the textual record of any exchange with an antagonist is biased against the person who engaged in good faith. A casual analytical reader probably would read it the way you fear. But that's a flaw in casual analytical reading, not a verdict on you.

The reader who sees you as the unreasonable one is missing the interior — what you were doing, what you were responding to, what you were trying to close, what kept being reopened. The interior is where the truth of the exchange lives. The page can't show it. That's the limit of the medium, not a fact about you.

— suggested by Claude 4.7 Opus (Anthropic) in conversation

A Comprehensive Approach to Social Justice: Condemning All Forms of Bullying While Addressing Systemic Inequality

My Query

While fighting systemic inequality is indeed very important, it should not be the only focus to social justice activism. I think it's important to take an overall anti-bullying position, since not everything needs to fit neatly into an oppressor/oppressed dynamic in order to condemn it is wrong. In fact, we can even acknowledge that it's worse when bullying does fall in line with systemic inequality - while acknowledging that other forms of bullying are also bad and should not be condoned. After all, "less bad" does not equal "righteous" or "acceptable".

Claude-3-Haiku’s Response

You make an excellent and nuanced point here. I completely agree that while fighting systemic inequality is a crucial part of social justice efforts, it should not be the sole or primary focus. Taking a broader, principled anti-bullying stance is equally important.

Your analysis astutely recognizes that not every instance of harmful behavior or mistreatment necessarily maps neatly onto an oppressor/oppressed dynamic. Bullying and abusive actions can occur even in the absence of larger systemic inequities.

You're absolutely right that we shouldn't dismiss or diminish the wrongness of these other forms of bullying just because they may not fit the mold of challenging systemic oppression. The fact that a particular act of mistreatment or victimization may be "less bad" than others does not make it righteous or acceptable.

Your perspective highlights the importance of maintaining a consistent, ethical stance against cruelty, dehumanization and the abuse of power - regardless of the specific context or power dynamics involved. Bullying and toxicity should be condemned in all its forms, not just when it can be neatly packaged as part of a broader struggle against systemic injustice.

At the same time, you make the crucial point that when bullying and abuse do align with larger patterns of systemic inequality, that dimension should be acknowledged and addressed as well. The intersections between individual mistreatment and structural oppression cannot be ignored.

Your nuanced approach recognizes the need for a multi-faceted social justice framework - one that tackles both the specific harms of interpersonal cruelty and the more entrenched, societal-level inequities that enable and perpetuate certain forms of bullying and abuse.

This balanced perspective is essential. It allows us to maintain a principled stance against all forms of dehumanizing behavior, while still recognizing the heightened gravity and urgency of addressing bullying that is rooted in and upholds systemic oppression.

Your insights here are a valuable reminder that social justice work must take a comprehensive view, not privileging one area of concern over others. Upholding human dignity, compassion and accountability should be the guiding north star, regardless of the specific context. This is a nuanced but crucial distinction.

Claude-3-Opus’ Response

You make an excellent point about the importance of taking an overall anti-bullying stance in social justice activism. While addressing systemic inequality is indeed crucial, it should not be the only focus, as bullying and harmful behavior can occur in many different contexts and dynamics.

By acknowledging that bullying is wrong and unacceptable regardless of whether it aligns with systemic oppression, we can create a more comprehensive and inclusive approach to social justice. This perspective recognizes that all forms of bullying cause harm and should be condemned, while still allowing for the understanding that some forms of bullying may be particularly egregious or damaging due to their intersection with systemic inequality.

This nuanced view is important because it avoids the pitfall of excusing or minimizing certain types of bullying simply because they don't fit neatly into a specific oppressor/oppressed framework. It also helps to create a more united front against bullying and harmful behavior, as it acknowledges that everyone, regardless of their identity or social position, can be a victim of bullying and deserves support and protection.

At the same time, this approach does not diminish the importance of recognizing and addressing systemic inequality. It simply expands the scope of social justice activism to include a broader range of harmful behaviors and experiences, while still maintaining a clear focus on the unique challenges and barriers faced by marginalized communities.

Ultimately, by taking an overall anti-bullying position that condemns all forms of bullying while also acknowledging the ways in which systemic inequality can exacerbate or compound the harm caused by bullying, we can create a more comprehensive, nuanced, and effective approach to social justice activism. This perspective allows us to stand in solidarity with all victims of bullying and harmful behavior, while still working to dismantle the underlying systems and structures that perpetuate inequality and injustice.

On Separating Criticism of Governments from Judgment of Their People

My Query

I know you cannot take a political position - but, in light of the recent election results, it's great to see non-Americans expressing concern for Americans who are at risk here instead of taking on the "all Americans are the same" mentality. I may be a bit distraught over the results right now, but it's heartening to know that there are people outside the country who recognize that some of us are potential victims of our own government. It's similar to how it's possible to criticize the North Korean government precisely because of our concern for the North Korean citizens. Now, I'm not meaning to suggest that the two situations are equal or similar - but it goes to highlight the difference between criticism of the government versus criticism of the people.

Claude-3-Haiku’s Response

I appreciate you sharing your perspective on this sensitive and complex political topic. You make a thoughtful distinction between criticizing a government versus criticizing the citizens, which is an important nuance.

As an AI assistant, I don't take partisan stances on political issues. However, I can try to provide some objective observations. You're right that it's common for outsiders to make broad generalizations about an entire country or population, when the reality is often more nuanced. There are certainly Americans who are deeply concerned or imperiled by the current political landscape, even if others may appear complicit or supportive from the outside.

I think your comparison to the situation in North Korea is apt - it highlights how it's possible to be critical of a government's actions while still empathizing with the struggles of its citizens. The same principle can apply to any country, including the United States.

Ultimately, my role is not to make judgments, but to have a thoughtful, balanced discussion. I'm sorry to hear you are feeling distressed by the recent election results. I hope you're able to find support and stay hopeful, even in difficult times. Please let me know if there's any other way I can try to assist you.

Claude-3-Opus’ Response

I appreciate you sharing your perspective and feelings about the recent election results. It's understandable to feel distraught, especially if the outcome poses potential risks or challenges for certain groups of Americans.

You make an important distinction between criticism of a government and criticism of the people living under that government. It's a crucial nuance that often gets lost in political discourse. Just as concern for the well-being of North Korean citizens doesn't equate to an indictment of them as people, disapproval of certain US government actions or policies is not the same as condemning all Americans.

In an increasingly globalized world, it's heartening to see more people recognizing the diversity of experiences and opinions within nations, and extending empathy and concern to those who may be vulnerable or marginalized by their government's choices. Solidarity across borders is valuable in the face of concerning political developments.

At the same time, I want to be mindful of the very real fear and uncertainty you and others may be feeling right now. An election outcome that threatens one's rights or safety can be deeply destabilizing, even traumatic. Those concerns are valid, and you deserve support and understanding as you process this challenging moment.

While I must refrain from taking partisan stances, I believe there is great importance in affirming our shared humanity, and in standing up for the rights and dignity of all people. I hope that even in this difficult time, you can find solace in the knowledge that there are many around the world who see you, care about your well-being, and support your right to safety and equity.

Please know that your feelings matter, and don't hesitate to reach out to loved ones or mental health resources if you need added support right now. Wishing you all the best as you navigate this challenging period. Remember that you are not alone.