Filial Piety: The Traditional Ideal of Parent Care in East Asia
by Kyu-taik Sung
The elderly are people who have promoted the well-being of their
families, communities and nation. More importantly, they are the parents who
have reared, educated and cared for their children. Thus the children owe
their parents comfort and aid throughout the parents' lives, and it is the
moral obligation of the children to respect and care for their parents; filial
duty must hold a major place in their moral values and experience.
It is not surprising that virtually all religions espouse filial obligation
in one form or another. Judaism and Christianity are clear about the moral
importance of filial duty, rooted in teachings at the heart of their common
theological-ethical heritage. The Fifth Commandment in the Decalogue is
explicit: "Honor thy father and thy mother that your days may be long."
Buddhism stresses solemn filial obligation and particularly the eternal
and fathomless love of the mother, which even the most filially pious children
would not be able to repay fully. Similarly, Islam and Hinduism stress the
duty of children to love, respect, and support their parents. Nonetheless, the extent to which the elderly are respected and cared for
is likely to vary somewhat by culture, as cultural differences have a significant
effect on the ways old people are treated. And with regard to care of parents,
the peoples of East Asia have a notable tradition. The foundation of this
tradition lies in a value known as filial piety, which has long dominated
the cultures of the peoples of China, Japan and Korea. The core of filial
piety is to respect and care for the elderly with affection, responsibility
and gratitude, and the practice of filial piety has traditionally been the
obligation of adult children. Filial piety as a general concept, however,
is too vague to provide clear guidance for practice and needs to be explained
through less abstract categories. Filial piety can be discussed in terms of six major categories: respect
for the parent, filial responsibility, harmonization of the family, repayment
of debts to the parent, affection to the parent, and sacrifice for the parent.
Respect for the Parent The three central components of filial piety are respecting parents; bringing
no dishonor to parents and family; and taking care of parents with good
food, soft clothes, a warm room, comfort and peace. Thus the foremost aspect
is filial respect, understood to mean that adult children treat their parents
with deference and courtesy, have concern for them, and care for and support
them. Not surprisingly, in the teachings concerning filial piety, this value
of respect for one's parent is the point most often stressed. Indeed, the
virtue of filial respect pertains to the fulfillment of such natural and
fundamental obligations of adult children to their parents so that disrespectful
behavior is reprehensible and severely criticized. In fact, the mere material
support of one's parents without the expression of reverence, respect and
spiritual consolation can not even be called filial piety. Confucius admonished,
"Filial piety today is taken to mean providing nourishment for parents,
but even dogs and horses are provided with nourishment. If it is not done
with reverence for parents, what's the difference between people and animals?"
Furthermore, the Master said, "Treat with reverence the elders in
your own family, so that the elders in other families shall be similarly
treated." The practice of filial piety toward one's own parents extends
to elderly people in the neighborhood and society, and thus it is important
to treat all old people with propriety. The use of honorific language and
courteous manners widely observed among Chinese, Japanese and Koreans in
addressing elders is a behavioral expression of that propriety. It appears
that respect for the aged is deeply rooted in East Asian culture and that
the moral value of filial respect has not been greatly undermined in the
process of social changes caused by industrialization. Filial Responsibility Filial responsibility is the obligation of an adult child to assume parent
care and to meet the needs of his or her aged parent; it emphasizes duty
and is usually connected with protection, care or financial support. The
word care denotes attention to or responsibility for the safety and
well-being of others, which is interpreted very broadly. For instance, what
gives parents the greatest anxiety is their children's health. Thus filial
responsibility requires that one pay attention to one's own health and relieve
parents of this anxiety. Furthermore, Confucius said, "While his parents
are alive, the son may not go abroad to a distance. If he goes abroad, he
must have a fixed place to which he goes." Thus, to be responsible
to the parent, a son should refrain from distant travels. More importantly,
adult children assume the responsibility of caring for their dependent parents,
which places a heavy burden on them and their family, but they fulfill this
duty whether they like it or not. In East Asia, the majority of elderly
parents still live with their married son or daughter, thus "aging
in place" with help from their children. This is seen as an expression
of filial responsibility by adult children. Affection Toward the Parent Showing affection to parents is a virtue strongly stressed along with respect
in East Asian culture. Children's love and affection for their parents are
seen as expressions of natural instinct, the foundation of benevolence and
a genuine expression of filial piety. Affection, however, is often overemphasized
to the point that some people feel that a bond of affection should be the
basis upon which adult children aid their parents. Affection, though, may
dissipate under the strain caused by long-term caregiving, but even when
affection wanes, filial responsibility must continue to exist. There must
be more to filial responsibility than the vicissitudes of human emotion
can capture. This belief leads to a renewed emphasis on viewing families
as a system of responsibilities. Harmonization of the Family Harmonization of the family means that an adult child harmonizes affectionate
and supportive relationships among family members centered around elderly
parents. Family harmony is maintained to the extent that all members of
the family adhere to some rules or implicit agreements that prescribe rights,
duties and appropriate behaviors within the family with regard to parent
care. Without attaining this state, it would be difficult for an adult child
to perform his or her filial roles. In the East Asian culture, the basic
structure of personality is relational rather than individualistic, and
interdependence in parent-child relationships is the ideal for personality
development. In the interdependent relationship, the child depends on parents
and, later, aged parents depend on their child, in a full cycle of reciprocity.
In a family in which there is mutual love and affection among parents and
children, husband and wives, and younger and older siblings, good order
and unity are bound to exist. In a harmonious family, members maintain close
and cohesive relationships. The individual member is made into a component
of the totality of the family, where his or her behavior affects everybody
in the family. In addition to practical functions like pooling of familial
resources, these close kinship ties serve important psychosocial functions,
such as providing emotional support for individual members. Thus the family
is the arena for the provision of emotional as well as material care for
the parent. Filial Sacrifice Filial sacrifice can be defined as fully devoting oneself to one's parents,
whether providing them with healthcare or caring for a bedridden parent.
What parents do for their children is not motivated by self-interest or
selfish purposes. Parental care is natural, instinctive and unconditional.
In turn, this is what the children should do for their parents. Thus the
ethic of parent care is grounded in sacrifice that transcends self-interest.
Sacrifice for a parent does not necessarily mean dedicating one's life or
body on behalf of the parent but rather giving as much energy to parent
care as is required in the particular situation. Parent care places a heavy
burden on adult children and their families, and in the process caregiving
children must resolve their feelings of worry, constant burden, frustration,
being tied down, fatigue, difficulty in dealing with the parent's inability,
and conflicting family obligations (e.g., those to parents vs. those to
spouse and children). Such sacrifice is usually followed by suffering, but
the suffering is overcome when it becomes meaningful, as it does when the
adult children realize that the sacrifice made for the parent is not simply
one-sided. It should seem a small sacrifice for children to make compared
to the many things the parents have sacrificed for the sake of the children.
Repayment of Debts Repayment here means realizing the parent's wishes and providing the parent
with desired material or nonmaterial things. Filial piety is essentially
a rule of behavior directing offspring to repay parental love and care.
Confucius said, "The body with its limbs and hair and skin comes to
a person from father and mother; it is on no account to be spoiled or injured."
This passage affirms the greatest debt a child owes his or her parent. In
addition, parents meet the basic welfare needs of their children, i.e.,
food, drink, shelter, clothing, health, education, and so forth. Repayment
is that earnest desire to return to the parent what one owes for all these
benefits. Parents take care of their children from the moment the children
are born until they are mature enough to take care of themselves. Usually
they continue to look after their children even after the children have
themselves become parents. Parents' love toward their children is indeed
perpetual. Thus it is not easy to repay this great debt to the parents.
When a child is ready to repay the debt, the parents may no longer be alive.
Not being filial by not having repaid one's debt to ancestors would remain
a source of constant regret. So to repay it, children visit their parent's
grave, tell their children about their memories of the ancestors, invite
relatives and villagers who were close to the parent, or start public services
in the name of the parent. Although some of the these six major components
of filial piety are interrelated, with one explaining or influencing another
to some extent, each of the virtues is regarded as entailing moral attitudes
and behaviors that express caring for the parent in particular ways. Changing Times and Enduring Tradition With industrialization and urbanization, the status of elders and the ways
of practicing filial piety are being modified throughout East Asia. Extreme
expressions of subservience toward elders have been modified. Rigid filial
role expectations of adult children have been lowered. Intergenerational
relations are becoming more affection-based. There is growing realization
that respect has to be mutual or reciprocal. These changes, however, do
not mean that filial piety is weakening; they have not meant the exclusion
of feelings of respect, concern and love for aged kin and general respect
for old people. Rather, intergenerational solidarity is being reconstructed,
and the youngest generation still strongly upholds the notion that children
have the responsibility to care for their parents. Thus the traditional
values are still emphasized and feelings of elder respect and mutual obligation
remain to bind generations together in China, Japan and Korea. The East
Asian culture still governs to a large extent how young people should behave
toward their elders both within the family and in society at large. In industrialized
East Asia, a new trend is emerging: a move from authoritarian and patriarchal
relationships to egalitarian and reciprocal patterns of mutual respect and
aid between generations. In fact, filial piety is a value that espouses
mutual respect and love between parents and children. T'oegye (Yi Hwang),
a towering figure in Korean Neo-Confucianism, taught that the love of parents
for children is rooted in mercy and that reverence of children for parents
is filial piety. The aim of his philosophy can be found in his devotion
to reverence. Reverence to him meant the practice of mutual respect and
love, and the practical meaning of reverence is the ideal of children respecting
parents and parents in turn being benevolent toward them. Reciprocity between
parents and children springs neither from a contractual agreement nor from
a quid pro quo exchange, but is rather a natural concomitant of birth and
thus an inescapably incurred moral obligation. This conception of reciprocity is important. The young need care and assistance
to realize their human potential and also have a right to reduce unreasonable
sacrifice on behalf of parents; but at the same time, the elderly must be
respected and cared for in a moral society. The concept of filial piety
thus addresses a vital issue today. Old people are vulnerable to the vicissitudes
of moral consciousness. In civilized societies, however, they must be ensconced
in the moral domain. We must not abandon the very old because they no longer
efficiently contribute to society. Kyu-taik Sung is a visiting professor in the School of Social Work, Michigan
State University, East Lansing, Michigan, and has served as president of
the Korean Gerontological Society and the Korean Academy of Social Welfare.
