An Indian Couple Sued Their Son And Daughter-In-Law For $643,000 Because They Wouldn’t Have A Child
Sanjeev and Sadhana Prasad waited six years after their son’s marriage for a grandchild — and never got one.
Numerous psychology books have been written about the relationships between parents and children, including the expectations parents put on their kids.
But an Indian couple took this one step further when their son and his wife didn’t give them the grandchild they wanted after six years of marriage — by suing them for $643,000 on the grounds of “mental harassment.”
Sanjeev and Sadhana Prasad argued that they spent $257,000 to raise their son, Shrey Sagar, paid for his pilot training in the U.S., arranged his marriage, and financed the wedding in the hopes that Sagar and his wife would have a child shortly after, making Mr. and Mrs. Prasad happy grandparents.
“My son has been married for six years but they are still not planning a baby,” Mr. Prasad said. He and his wife had hoped they would have a grandchild to play with during retirement, but that plan hadn’t come to fruition.
“The main issue is that at this age we need a grandchild, but these people have an attitude that they don’t think about us,” Prasad said.
Indian culture engrains a sense of family obligation at an early age, including a responsibility to carry on the bloodline and take care of the elderly. In fact, one law even lets parents claim a monthly allowance from their adult children if they so choose.
In other words, Prasad’s complaints seem unreasonable from a Western perspective, but they stem from a core component of Indian culture.
