this is such an important article. How easy it is to take control and thereby reduce the elder even more. A fine line between care and control to be constantly measured.
Thank you Veronica. Care may begin with good intentions, but if the result is that someone is spoken over, managed around, or quietly reduced to a set of needs, then we have missed the point.
That is why I am wary of anything that teaches professionals to “understand” ageing without first requiring them to hear from older people themselves.
Thank you, Jane, for this deeply insightful and courageous piece.
“When Care Becomes a Claim” is one of the most nuanced explorations I’ve read on family elder abuse.
You beautifully illuminate how good intentions, exhaustion, and a sense of unfair burden can quietly slide into entitlement that too without ever requiring the perpetrator to see themselves as abusive.
The concept of the “ledger” and moral neutralisation is particularly powerful. It explains so much of what we see but rarely name.
Your essay resonates strongly in the Indian context, where joint family systems and the cultural ideal of pitru rina (debt to one’s parents/ancestors) have long framed elder care as both a sacred duty and a source of punya (spiritual merit). For generations, the phrase “Maa-Baap ki seva” (service to parents) carried deep emotional and religious weight. In many households, especially in middle-class urban India today, one sibling — often a daughter or daughter-in-law ends up shouldering the primary responsibility while others pursue careers abroad or maintain nuclear setups. The quiet resentment that builds is real and human.
Yet, as you so rightly point out, sacrifice does not create ownership. In India, we are seeing a troubling rise in cases where the “dutiful child” who manages finances, property, and medical decisions gradually begins to treat the parent’s assets as already theirs — “baad mein toh sabko hi baantna hai” (it will be divided among us anyway).
Stories of elders being emotionally isolated, pressured into signing over property “for tax planning,” or having their pensions quietly redirected are becoming distressingly common, even in seemingly “respectful” families. The traditional respect for elders, sometimes masks control.
What makes your piece especially valuable is that it doesn’t villainise caregivers. It humanises the exhaustion while firmly drawing the line: care must remain service, not substitution or colonisation of the older person’s autonomy and dignity.
In Indian terms, true seva honours the recipient’s agency; it does not diminish it.
This essay should be required reading for every adult child in joint or multi-generational families, every where across the world.
It’s a timely call to interrupt the story before the elder “disappears inside it.”
We need more such honest conversations if we are to preserve the beautiful spirit of intergenerational care while protecting the rights and humanity of our elders.
Grateful for your work. Looking forward to more in this series.
Thank you, Himanshu. I am deeply grateful for this response.
Your reflections always teach me something, and I value the depth and generosity you bring each time you comment. These are difficult conversations, but necessary ones if we are to protect both the spirit of family care and the rights, dignity and autonomy of older people.
So sad and realistic. It reminds me of the end of The Good Earth where his sons lie to him as they agree to carry out his wishes. You make some important points here. Thank you.
Sharp piece — the "ledger" framing nails something most elder-abuse writing skips. I was a caregiver for my mom, and the distinction you draw rings true from the inside: I never once thought of her as an asset to eventually cash out. If anything it was the reverse — I tracked her finances closely enough to know almost to the dollar how much she had and when it would run out. Which meant, we would start covering the added expenses beyond what we already were doing. That's the tell, I think. The moment someone stops counting for the person and starts counting instead of them is exactly where your ledger turns from care into entitlement.
Thank you for sharing this. I found it very moving and deeply insightful, especially from someone who has been at the frontline of care.
What you describe speaks to the real responsibility of caregiving: paying attention, planning ahead, and protecting your mother’s wellbeing without ever losing sight of her as a person in her own right. That distinction is so important. Care can involve hard decisions, financial vigilance, and real sacrifice, but it should never erase the older person at the centre of it.
I am grateful you brought your own experience into this conversation.
this is such an important article. How easy it is to take control and thereby reduce the elder even more. A fine line between care and control to be constantly measured.
Thank you Veronica. Care may begin with good intentions, but if the result is that someone is spoken over, managed around, or quietly reduced to a set of needs, then we have missed the point.
That is why I am wary of anything that teaches professionals to “understand” ageing without first requiring them to hear from older people themselves.
Thank you, Jane, for this deeply insightful and courageous piece.
“When Care Becomes a Claim” is one of the most nuanced explorations I’ve read on family elder abuse.
You beautifully illuminate how good intentions, exhaustion, and a sense of unfair burden can quietly slide into entitlement that too without ever requiring the perpetrator to see themselves as abusive.
The concept of the “ledger” and moral neutralisation is particularly powerful. It explains so much of what we see but rarely name.
Your essay resonates strongly in the Indian context, where joint family systems and the cultural ideal of pitru rina (debt to one’s parents/ancestors) have long framed elder care as both a sacred duty and a source of punya (spiritual merit). For generations, the phrase “Maa-Baap ki seva” (service to parents) carried deep emotional and religious weight. In many households, especially in middle-class urban India today, one sibling — often a daughter or daughter-in-law ends up shouldering the primary responsibility while others pursue careers abroad or maintain nuclear setups. The quiet resentment that builds is real and human.
Yet, as you so rightly point out, sacrifice does not create ownership. In India, we are seeing a troubling rise in cases where the “dutiful child” who manages finances, property, and medical decisions gradually begins to treat the parent’s assets as already theirs — “baad mein toh sabko hi baantna hai” (it will be divided among us anyway).
Stories of elders being emotionally isolated, pressured into signing over property “for tax planning,” or having their pensions quietly redirected are becoming distressingly common, even in seemingly “respectful” families. The traditional respect for elders, sometimes masks control.
What makes your piece especially valuable is that it doesn’t villainise caregivers. It humanises the exhaustion while firmly drawing the line: care must remain service, not substitution or colonisation of the older person’s autonomy and dignity.
In Indian terms, true seva honours the recipient’s agency; it does not diminish it.
This essay should be required reading for every adult child in joint or multi-generational families, every where across the world.
It’s a timely call to interrupt the story before the elder “disappears inside it.”
We need more such honest conversations if we are to preserve the beautiful spirit of intergenerational care while protecting the rights and humanity of our elders.
Grateful for your work. Looking forward to more in this series.
Himanshu Rath
agewellfoundation.org
Thank you, Himanshu. I am deeply grateful for this response.
Your reflections always teach me something, and I value the depth and generosity you bring each time you comment. These are difficult conversations, but necessary ones if we are to protect both the spirit of family care and the rights, dignity and autonomy of older people.
With appreciation,
Jane
So sad and realistic. It reminds me of the end of The Good Earth where his sons lie to him as they agree to carry out his wishes. You make some important points here. Thank you.
Sharp piece — the "ledger" framing nails something most elder-abuse writing skips. I was a caregiver for my mom, and the distinction you draw rings true from the inside: I never once thought of her as an asset to eventually cash out. If anything it was the reverse — I tracked her finances closely enough to know almost to the dollar how much she had and when it would run out. Which meant, we would start covering the added expenses beyond what we already were doing. That's the tell, I think. The moment someone stops counting for the person and starts counting instead of them is exactly where your ledger turns from care into entitlement.
Thank you for sharing this. I found it very moving and deeply insightful, especially from someone who has been at the frontline of care.
What you describe speaks to the real responsibility of caregiving: paying attention, planning ahead, and protecting your mother’s wellbeing without ever losing sight of her as a person in her own right. That distinction is so important. Care can involve hard decisions, financial vigilance, and real sacrifice, but it should never erase the older person at the centre of it.
I am grateful you brought your own experience into this conversation.