Don't take advantage of your children's filial piety and take advantage of your children.

Author: Tao Qing Hsu

It is said that since ancient times, it is really a myth that parents can treat every child fairly. Foreign academic research has also done research. When parents treat their children, they do have special favoritism and doting on certain children. As far as my personal understanding of Chinese history and stories is concerned, when parents treat their children, apart from having a particular child’s favor and doting, they also use the filial heart of the other child to take advantage of that child. What's interesting is that no one questioned or criticized this in traditional Chinese morality and etiquette. On the contrary, among these people who are constrained by morality and ethics, in their personal cognition, most believe and advocate that children who are filial to their parents can accumulate merit for themselves even if they suffer losses, are bullied, or taken advantage of. Because filial piety is bound to be blessed, even the filial child may hold this view. In some facts, I personally do not deny this.

However, today I want to explore from another angle, why parents favor and spoil one child, but make harsh demands on the other child, and even use that child’s kind heart to squeeze his labor and money, and to take advantage of this child? What kind of mentality is this? Think about it, if you are a parent, do you have this problem? What's interesting is that I found that this mentality will be passed from the previous generation to the next. There has been a saying in China since ancient times: There are no wrong parents in the world. Chinese people have long believed that if children question their parents' behavior and ways of doing things, it is an act of disrespect for their parents. Such cognition limits the thinking of Chinese people. Therefore, no one can think independently to question these issues.

In my many years of observation, I have discovered that some parents do sacrifice any of their children to help other children. In other words, parents will use their children who are more kind and honest and do not care about gains and losses to make good use of the child's labor, time, and even the money he earns to help other children. Parents do not hesitate to sacrifice one of the children to save the others. This was a common occurrence in ancient times. In the case of patriarchal parents, these parents usually sacrifice their daughters. If these parents have many sons, they will sacrifice one of them.

Parents therefore use most of the resources they have at their disposal to support their favored and doted children, making it easier for these children to achieve any secular achievements in life or any desired, such as academic advancement, starting a career, buy a house, get married, or raise children. It is a pity that these parents treat their kind and generous child indifferently. These parents even forgot how the child worked hard to give everything he had.

In my observations, I also found that these children who are favored and doted by their parents, who are funded by their parents with most of their resources, are not necessarily grateful to their parents in their hearts. They think that the resources their parents give them are what they deserve. They even thought that their parents had treated them unfairly in the allocation of resources, so these doted children held a grudge against it.

What's interesting is that these children who are accustomed to favoritism and doting, once their parents ask them to pay financial and labor to give back to their parents, smart children are unwilling to suffer for this, and they are unwilling to be taken advantage of by their parents. These children even believed that they were kidnapped and blackmailed by their parents' affection and emotions. In other words, they think this is unfair to them. We found that these kids are smart with double standards.

In addition, because these children who are funded by their parents, because the resources they get are not obtained through personal labor, they are relatively comfortable in life and have no desire to strive for progress. Once their life's fortunes reverse, or after their parents pass away, they lack the support of their parents, and their lives will suffer a major setback. Either they have a rift in their marriage or a career obstacle. Either they have physical health problems, or they have major financial damage.

As for the child who was sacrificed by their parents or taken advantage of by their parents, if they are kind and generous in heart and do not care about gains and losses, they will usually be grateful to their parents and willing to pay their labor and money hard. However, these children who have been taken advantage of by their parents will one day wake up. After they become sensible, they will eventually discover and feel how their parents treat them unfairly. There are some children who are kind and generous in nature and grateful to their parents. Even if they know their parents are treating them unfairly, they are still willing to treat their parents kindly. Even if these children resent their parents, they can use the wisdom they have learned to slowly resolve this resentment.

Unfortunately, some children do not. When these children discover that they were sacrificed and taken advantage of by their parents. Moreover, these parents even make further unreasonable demands on these children after receiving benefits. These children are unwilling to be treated this way by their parents, and will bear their grudges, and even break with their parents and sever relations with each other, and never contact each other.

However, I am sorry to say that those victims who have been taken advantage of, without the above-mentioned awakening, they will learn from their parents' model. One day they will become perpetrators, deliberately using their children's filial piety to take advantage of them. And those children who benefit from being spoiled by their parents, of course, do not have the ability to think independently, and naturally become people who use their children's filial piety to take advantage of their children.

In fact, there is also a kind of selfish parents in this world. They use their children's kindness and generosity, use their children's filial heart, to squeeze their children's labor and money, to take advantage of their children, just for their own happiness.

Of course, there is another kind of parents who see that their children are inadequate, have poor worldly achievements, and make little money. And their other child is more capable, has better worldly achievements, and makes more money. Therefore, they strongly demand that this more capable child should contribute money to help their other less capable child. It is even required that this capable child should contribute money and effort to bear the responsibility of taking care of his parents. If the child with stronger ability does not obey, the parents will suppress him with various negative words, and then use the child's filial piety to take advantage of him. In other words, they spoil the child who is inadequate and has poor worldly achievements.

Therefore, when we look at the mentality of these parents, we can conclude that selfishness and greed are at work. In addition to hurting themselves, this mentality will also hurt their children. Unfortunately, they don't have such knowledge. They even think that they are thinking about their children and helping their children. In fact, they are hurting their children. Unfortunately, they have no such knowledge.

Doting their children is actually hurting their children. The psychology of many parents is to love their children too much, but without such recognition, spoiling is just a kind of harm. It is a pity that spoiling a child even comes from taking advantage of another child and hurting the child. I believe that this kid who was taken advantage of, his soul must also be hurt.

When we understand the above-mentioned principles, if we are parents, we should understand that we must know how to control our selfishness and greed when we treat our children. Don't take advantage of your children's filial piety, and don't use their kindness and generosity to deliberately take advantage of them. Extending this point, we also understand that we should not use the kindness and generosity of others to deliberately take advantage of them. In fact, taking advantage of others is not good for oneself. Everything has cause and effect. If we are selfish and greedy and deliberately take advantage of others, such a cause will cause others to take advantage of us and deliberately harm us. This is the result. The cause and effect are connected. We must clearly understand this point.