OBOWIĄZKI DZIECKA WOBEC RODZICÓW
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Date
2001
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Wydział Prawa i Administracji UAM
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CHILD’S DUTIES TOWARDS PARENTS
Abstract
This article attempts to interpret the regulations of the Polish Family and Guardianship
Code concerning a child’s duties towards parents, in particular the character of those duties and
their significance in the social and court practice. It does not embrace, however, all the issues connected with this subject. To exhaust it, one would have to discuss such points as the abuse and
negligence of the parental power in the aspect of the obedience duty, and enforcing the obedience
duty by parents. For the sake of the limited size of the article it was reduced to the most salient
matters.
1. The character of the duties other than maintenance, specified in art. 87 and 91 of the Polish
Family and Guardianship Code, is a result of the occurring differences in the prerequisites, scope,
content, conditioning upon financial interest, the social function, and the consequence of violating
both of these two groups o f duties. A clear division of duties into those which relate to maintenance
and those which do not may sometimes be difficult, or even pointless, since these two obligations
co-exist and complement each other. One behaviour can therefore fulfil both o f these duties.
2. The norms imposing duties towards parents play mainly a regulatory and educational role.
Their violation can be followed by specific legal consequences, most of which are, however, indirect
and not aimed directly at forcing a child into obedience. It is characteristic that they are applied
only in more serious cases of duty violation, and they assume their strongest form in cases when
a child fails to fulfil the duty to obey.
3. The support duty due to its general content completes the other norms of the Family and
Guardianship Code concerning duties towards parents. Art 87 of the Code is concretised in the
regulations about maintenance duties and can therefore be quoted in additiona to those regulations
as the grounds for adjudging maintenance payments. It cannot, however, be an independent
ground of such a verdict, for this would be an instance of going round the maintenance law.
4. The duty of contribution to covering the family living costs realises the principle of equal
living standards for the whole family. A way of completing this duty can be subject to a civil
contract, especially in the case of a pension contract. This, however, only applies to children of age.
5. The obligation of help in the common household has a selfless character, and its peculiar
equivalent is supposed to be the circumstances specified in the prerequisites in art. 91 § 2 of the
Family and Guardianship Code. A child cannot therefore condition the provided help upon any
specific benefits. This does not exclude awarding children for their work at home, since parents are
free to use this type o f educational methods.
6. This essay is an attempt to present the essence and structure of the obedience duty. As has
been shown, parents by executing parental powers shape their child’s behaviour with two kinds of
influence. One of them, turned directly at the child, requires a response in the form of the child’s
behaviour (obedience sphere). The other, though referring to the child, does not require any cooperation
with the child in order to prove successful (endurance sphere), and the child only bears the
consequence of the parents’ actions. The obedience duty can occur only in the obedience sphere. It
does not have a direct character, however, since parents always leave a certain range o f freedom to
the child (real independence sphere), within which the obedience duty has only a potential character.
7. The obedience duty corresponds to the parents’ influence mainly in the range of care o f the
child, and it can also occur in the scope o f property management.
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Citation
Ruch Prawniczy, Ekonomiczny i Socjologiczny 63, 2001, z. 3, s. 61-80