Why do people care for their aging parents when they were not nurtured by these parents? There is no law mandating that adult children must provide for their parents. Therefore, adult children choose to provide this care. Since there is no legal duty to provide for frail parents, there is no legal authority, unlike parenting for offspring. Caregivers for parents cannot enforce any unwanted decision on their parents, as they can on their children. There is a vast difference between choosing the responsibility for providing care and having the authority to provide it. You cannot ‘parent’ your parents.