‘He was your father,he raised you’: Examining helping professionals’ narratives on filial piety in Singapore

Abstract

Filial piety provides cultural justifications for the enactment of the Maintenance of Parents Act (MPA), which aims to address late life financial security. Under the Act, indigent older parents may sue their adult children in a special tribunal for their financial maintenance. Although social workers are not directly involved in these adjudications, their professional functions are heavily influenced by considerations of filial piety and the provisions of the MPA. Using Foucauldian concepts of surveillance, control, and resistance as well as the narrative approach, this qualitative study uncovers professional characterizations of their elderly clients/patients and their families as either villains or victims. Social workers inevitably surveil their elderly clients and families to ensure compliance with the precepts of filial piety that undergird the MPA. Finally, this study discusses the disciplining functions of the MPA in ensuring that indigent elderly clients rely on their adult children for their financial well-being.