alt Hacker NewsAFAICT this is a value in most cultures in all directions. I think "the west" invented pensions, social security and medicaid (or whatever you call it in your country) so parents nor children had to plan on caring for the elderly when they had trouble working (and with white collar jobs, that may be a long time).
Multi-generational, western (American) guy here: caring for the older generations is a core value to everyone I know and to me. We just don't _have_ to. My mom has money, can drive, owns a nicer house than I do. So, it's really only for 'values' that I check in on her and handyman for her whenever I can. In fact, for the latter, I cause her more problems than I fix.
Your mom (not you specifically, but the average person's) is being provided for by the collective, ie currently working-age people's pension contributions. She, as a worker, paid taxes in her own working age, and financed stranger's parents' lives, and now the new generation does the same for her. It's a many to many relationship, while the old style arrangement was more point-to-point. The children did the literal manual work to keep their parents fed and cared for, while now they pay some strangers to do it, using their pension.