this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2026
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I think this is a really good start here. Lemmy is mostly populated by early- to late-middle-aged men in STEM fields, so it makes sense why many of the comments are focused on asserting how much better they are at parenting than actually talking about what the main topic is, which is how do we process this kind of situation. It's true that the reality of our society means that people who are legally adults are expected and, really, forced to be responsible for themselves whether or not they are prepared even if just by merit that nobody is guaranteed the material security to take care of all their kids after that point. Many of us find a way and find more lessond of use to ourselves for having done so, so it isn't very reasonable to only focus on these parents, though they do indeed seem like bad parents.
What you and most other people here have missed is the ableism element in this. This is very possibly an autistic person, and our society is extremely hostile even to well-equipped autistic people who have a reliable support network. Everyone here seems agreed that this ought not happen, but many if not most of you have chosen to go the route of finding individualized moral liability rather than identifying how this fits into a system where anyone is in this situation against their will.
Even if the guy was merely parented poorly, or is just a lazy bum, or disabled to the point of needing this kind of care, we should always be thinking about the fact that nobody should be fearing for their life because they don't know how to get a job or take care of themselves.
Yeah. I completely agree in that you can blame the parents as much as you blame society or capitalism for the situation.
On a societal level he shouldn't have to fear for his life in this situation. On an individual level, this is the context we live in. If you stop enabling them you by default subject them to the un-enabled experience of the world. You can't force an adult to improve their lives or even get therapy or help. The expectation can't be "if your middle aged child refuses to get help you're stuck caring for them forever" that's an adverse incentive. At some point you have to stop enabling them and let them start taking care of their own life. In a better society we would have progressives and leftists in charge who could create a good social safety net that would help us all through these situations.
We don't even know if OOP refused to work, or couldn't work. There are lots of conditions that make it literally impossible to work a job, no matter how much you "apply yourself" or how much effort you put in.
Either he CAN do something and he doesn't want to. Or he can't do ANYTHING and should apply for disability benefits. Every decent country has a program for severely disabled citizens.
I doubt this fictional tale is likely as written in a story without disability benefits.
We're still talking about the US, right? Lots of people fall through the cracks because their issues don't get recognized as a "real" disability, this is true even for countries with more comprehensive social security systems.