THE OBLIGATION OF ADULT CHILDREN TO CARE FOR THEIR DISABLED PARENTS: THE PROPEDEUTIC ASPECT

Abstract

The relevance of the research is determined by the insufficient study of the issue of the obligations of children who have reached the full age to take care of disabled parents and the necessity to clarify general and legal characteristics of this obligation. It is indicated that there are no general and theoretical developments regarding the fulfillment of the duty to take care of parents by adult children in domestic jurisprudence. The purpose of the article is to cover the propaedeutic aspects of understanding the duty of adult children to take care of their disabled parents. It is indicated that the basis for a general and theoretical analysis of the subject of knowledge is the definition of the behavior of adult children in relation to disabled parents as a duty in the Constitution of Ukraine and the Family Code of Ukraine. It is emphasized that the legislator’s use of the term «adult children» does not meet the requirements of the legal technique and the classification of this term by linguistics as an oxymoron. There are two tasks that should be solved as a priority: first, it is an understanding of the adult children concept’s content, its compliance with the requirements of legal technique; secondly, it is necessary to clarify the very nature of the duty of children who have reached the full age to take care of incapacitated parents. Legal obligation is one of the elements of the legal relations content along with subjective legal right. Legal relations are volitional relations. They are based on the parties’ conscious act of will. The person should be aware of the legal obligation; a person either voluntarily undertakes the fulfillment of a certain obligation, or consciously agrees that he has the corresponding obligations. This characteristic of the legal obligation is absent in the case of entrusting adult children with the duty to take care of disabled parents. It is summarized that taking into account the requirements of the legal technique, it is appropriate to amend the current legislation to replace the words «adult children» with the words «children who have reached the full age». An important direction of further scientific research should be to determine the nature of the obligation of children who have reached the full age to take care of disabled parents and clarify the correlation between this obligation and the concept of legal obligation.