How much should parents be in their child's life?

[Anonymous]

Is it normal for a parent to leave their kids alone for hours at a time and only come home to cook and sleep? Is it normal for kids to take care of everything in the house (beside finances) inculding their parents things?

If you are or want to be a parent, how much of a role do you want to play? Usually you'll see parents talking to their kids and playing with them, depending on their age. If they're a teenager, would you ask them about their interests? Maybe attending a sport event or help them with a bake sale? Or would you rather have someone else taking care of your kids (even if it's the kids themselves doing it)?

This was inspired by a clip about a woman talking about her mother's neglect, I'll update the post when I find it.

[Guy__]

I think we should listen to our instincts more on this one. Our modern environment is very unnatural in many ways, obviously there is a lot of trouble with this.

[Avicenna]

That's not normal, but how old are the kids and what is the overall situation?

[Asker]

Teenagers, the parents provide them with food (they would run out sometimes) and pay the bills but rarely anything beyond that. Mostly the kids do stuff like cleaning while not being home until nightime. Beside that, not a lot of information was given. Does the story sound fake or is it normal?

[Avicenna]

it's plausible, but should have been investigated. Was it a single parent household with the parent working multiple jobs? Older teenagers can take care of a lot, but, yeah, parents should be around more than that.

[Asker]

No, the parent didn't work. I'm assuming they lived off welfare, otherwise the parent would be doing some illegal job. It was happening for a few years though so I'm guessing, at least the younger kids, were preteen or younger when it started. I usually dont focus on cases like this but it was weird hearing people calling it neglect.

[Avicenna]

Yeah, well, neglect is a general term. It does sound like this would normally result in the kids being taken by CPS, but again, depends on the details.

[Asker]

Fair, how involved should a parent generally be then?

[Avicenna]

I'd say it's dependent somewhat on the kids' ages and whether they're special needs. Providing shelter, safe environment, food, medical care/medicine, clothes. But even there, if it's deficient amounts of those things, it could be bad parenting.

[Rebel_Queen]

If the child is a teenager, give them their space! Myself included, when I get home I just want to go to my room and relax and unwind from my day

[Guy13]

All up in everything…