Parental Obligations

Answered by William Thomas

Objectivists hold that parents are obliged to care for and raise their children. While Objectivism does not accept any unchosen obligations, it does recognize that one can, through one's choices, place another person in jeopardy. By creating a dependent child, the parents assume an obligation to see the child through to independence. Independence in Objectivist terms means being able to live as a rational being, on the efforts of one's own mind and body.

Exactly when the parents' obligation expires (or, indeed, strictly who has the obligation in the first place) are topics on which there are some reasonable differences of opinion. If you like, I could go into these issues in a follow-up. But certainly the obligation expires by the time of the child's legal adulthood. Indeed, the child's reaching adulthood healthy and able is the very goal the obligation must fulfill.

Of course, no one has an obligation to have children in the first place, although personally I think it is something to seriously consider, and that missing out on children can mean missing out on important values.