Parenting & Family Quote by Samuel Richardson

Richardson nails a perennial family drama with the ruthless politeness of the 18th century: the child who treats a parent like a disposable launchpad. The line is funny because it’s phrased like a mild observation while smuggling in a savage accusation. “Act as if” keeps the speaker ostensibly reasonable, but the implication is brutal: some children behave as though parents exist solely to bankroll and engineer their ascent, then politely step offstage and die.

The intent is moral pressure, not sentiment. Richardson isn’t begging for gratitude; he’s exposing entitlement as a kind of moral illiteracy. “Established in the world” is the tell: in Richardson’s England, getting established meant status, marriage prospects, money, reputation, and connections - a social architecture parents were expected to build and maintain. The subtext is that family isn’t just affection; it’s labor, risk, and sacrifice measured in years. To demand the fruits without acknowledging the cost is to treat parental devotion as a service contract with a termination clause.

Context matters because Richardson wrote in a culture obsessed with duty, hierarchy, and proper feeling - and his novels often stage virtue as something tested in the marketplace of social expectations. This quip functions like a parental counterspell against the rising fantasy of self-made independence: you may want to be your own person, but you were made, supported, and situated by other people. The punch lands because it weaponizes domestic realism against youthful amnesia, turning “getting started” into a reminder of who had to postpone their own life so you could begin yours.