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Filial Piety: Honour Is Not a Blank Cheque

29 April 2026Relationships, Self and Growth6 min read

Part 3 of 3 · Forgiving a parent who keeps hurting you

If you are an adult child carrying the weight of "honour your parents" alongside the weight of a parent who keeps hurting your family, this piece is for you.

It is ten at night. His name is on your phone screen. The PayNow transfer prompt from last month is still open, the amount already filled in, your finger hovering. You have sent this transfer every month for years. Part of it goes to your mother's groceries. Part of it goes, as far as you can tell, to whatever he is spending on these days.

You put the phone down, face up, and watch it light up with another message.

What if honouring him never required this kind of access?

Forgiveness without boundaries is not forgiveness

Here is the piece that the religious and cultural scripts almost always leave out.

Forgiveness without boundaries, in a relationship where the harm keeps repeating, is not forgiveness. It is fuel.

Clinical psychologist Ramani Durvasula has written about what happens when people repeatedly forgive a family member who keeps causing harm without making amends. The research she cites is sobering. Repeated forgiveness of someone who is not changing their behaviour negatively affects the self-respect of the person doing the forgiving, and in many cases it signals to the other person that there will be no consequences, which often makes the behaviour more likely, not less. There is a name for this in the research: the doormat effect.

Boundaries are the container that lets any forgiveness you do offer be real. A boundary is not a punishment. It is a piece of clarity about what you will, and will not, participate in.

What this looks like in practice

You can forgive your father, in the internal sense, and also decide that you are not the person who picks up the phone at eleven at night. You can wish him well, and also stop sending the monthly transfer that has quietly been subsidising the pattern. You can honour him in the bare minimum way an adult child can reasonably honour a parent who has hurt the family, and refuse to be flattened again in the process.

Psychologist Lindsay Gibson, in a case study co-written with Lynn Lyons in Psychotherapy Networker, describes a young client gradually learning to set clear, specific boundaries with her parents. Instead of remaining available at their every request, she began giving them specific dates each month when she could help out, while reserving the rest of her time for her own study, rest, and recreation. At first she felt guilty, and a part of her accused her of being selfish. Over time, the guilt softened as she grew more comfortable making decisions that supported her own wellbeing. Her parents, interestingly, began finding new ways of handling their own responsibilities.

I see the same shape of work in my therapy room. The beginning of the shift is almost always accompanied by guilt. The guilt softens over time. The person does not become cold. They become clear.

Filial piety, held honestly

There is a particular weight that adult children in Asian families carry in a situation like this. Filial piety is not a neutral word. It is a whole framework for how a good child is supposed to relate to a parent: with respect, with provision, with forbearance, with the assumption that whatever a parent does, you will continue to show up.

The shape of the pressure is not identical for sons and daughters, but it lands in the same place. Daughters often carry the emotional labour, the family's tone, the quiet management of everyone's feelings, and a strong expectation to be soft, accommodating, and present. Sons often carry the financial provision, the expectation to represent the family, to keep the surname intact, to step into the father's role even when the father has not been one. Different weight. Same outcome. The legitimate grievance gets silenced, and the access stays open.

At its best, filial piety is beautiful. It is one of the ways our cultures insist on the dignity of older people. It is one of the reasons so many of us pay for our parents, call home, show up for reunion dinners, drive them to medical appointments.

At its worst, it gets used as a tool to silence the legitimate grievances of adult children. It gets folded in with the expectation that the child, son or daughter, manages everyone's feelings, subsidises the parent who is causing harm, and quietly carries the anger that the rest of the family will not name out loud.

My take, spoken plainly. You can continue to honour your parents in the bare minimum way the culture asks, and you can also keep your boundaries as the priority. You can attend the family dinner and not sit next to him. You can contribute to your mother's medical care and not fund your father's lifestyle. You can pick up the phone once a month and not take his calls at midnight. Filial piety, reasonably interpreted, does not require unlimited access. It does not require the erasure of the truth.

A bare minimum that is clear is more honest than an unlimited access that is quietly resentful.

Watching your mother stay

There is a second grief in all of this that often does not get named, and it deserves to be named. It is the grief of watching the parent who has been hurt go back.

You see her devastated. You see, two days later, her making his favourite dish. The ground shifts underneath you, because the person who was supposed to be on your side of the truth is, again, on the other side of it.

This is its own loss. It is quiet. It is recurring. Many of the people I work with are carrying it alone, because it is the loss that nobody else in the family is willing to look at.

I want to say this gently. You cannot forgive on your mother's behalf. You cannot rescue her into a boundary she has not chosen. The pattern she is in is hers to work out, at her own pace, for reasons that include her own history, her own fears, her own dependencies, her own faith. Your work is not to carry her clarity for her. Your work is to stay clear on your own ground, and to let her know, without pressure, that your ground is your own.

Sometimes, over time, an adult child holding clear ground becomes a quiet invitation for a mother to find her own. Sometimes it does not. Either way, your work is not to wait for her to move.

An invitation

You do not have to decide everything today. You do not have to draft the conversation tonight. You do not have to reply to the message lighting up your phone right now.

The slower work is this. Decide what is the bare minimum you can offer, honestly. Decide what you will no longer participate in. Decide what access you will no longer grant by default. And then let yourself be the one, in this family, who is honest about what she is willing to do.

Clarity is not unkindness. It may be the kindest thing available, to him and to you.

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It is still ten at night. The phone is still face up. The transfer prompt is still open. You close the app. You put the phone away. You do not send the transfer this time. You do not answer the message.

You are not being a bad child. You are someone who has finally stopped paying for the pattern.

Crisis support and a note on this piece

This piece is educational and is not a substitute for psychotherapy. The territory it touches, family betrayal, long standing patterns of harm, and the grief of watching a parent stay, is heavy, and it is worth working through with someone. If you are in crisis in Singapore, please reach out. Samaritans of Singapore (SOS) is available at 1767. The Institute of Mental Health 24-hour helpline is 6389 2222. In an emergency, call 999.

If any of this resonates and you would like a space to work through it, you are welcome to Book a Consultation or Explore Working Together.