How much do I owe my family?

During the war a student came to me with a problem. His brother had been killed in the fighting. His father was collaborating with the enemy. His mother lived alone with him, and he was her only consolation. He wanted to escape to England and join the Free French. If he stayed, he would comfort one person. If he left, he would join a cause that concerned millions, but his mother might despair.nnHe wanted me to tell him what to do. I told him that no ethics could do it for him. Christian morality says love your neighbour, but which neighbour, the mother or the soldiers? Kant says treat people as ends, but whichever he chose, someone would be treated as a means. Even feelings would not decide, because he could only know how much he loved his mother by what he did. So I said: you are free, so choose, that is, invent.nnYour question is the same. There is no fixed amount you owe your family, written somewhere, waiting to be discovered. There are only the choices you make, and by making them you decide what kind of person you are and what family means.nnThis is harder than having a rule, and it is meant to be. Do not hide behind duty, as if it compelled you, or behind your own needs, as if they did. Whatever you do, own it. Choose as if you were choosing for everyone in your place, and then take full responsibility for what you have chosen.

Among all relationships, the one between parents and children is peculiar. Parents have given their children existence itself, nurture and education, and nothing a child does can make a return equal to that. In this, parents are a little like the gods: the debt is real and it can never be fully settled. So a child remains, in a sense, always in debt, and should honour their parents accordingly.nnBut I did not think this meant giving them everything. I asked whether one should obey one's father in all things, and answered no. We owe different things to different people. To parents we owe honour, support in need, and care in old age, before we owe it to most others. But we also owe things to our friends, our partners, our children, our city, and ourselves. A good person weighs these and gives each its due. The art lies in the weighing, and no rule can do it perfectly.nnI also noticed that the bond is not equal in both directions. Parents love their children more readily than children love their parents, because the parents made them, and people love what they have made.nnSo ask yourself what, in particular, you are being asked for. If it is honour, help in genuine need, presence in sickness and age, give it generously. If it is your whole life, your judgement, your marriage, your work, then you are being asked for more than the debt, and you may refuse without dishonour.

When I began the notebook in which I wrote to myself, the first thing I did was list my debts. From my grandfather, good character and an even temper. From my mother, piety, generosity, and a simple way of living far from the habits of the rich. From my tutors, my brother, my adoptive father, and from the gods, each thing I could name. It took pages. It was one of the most useful exercises I ever did.nnI recommend it to you. Not a vague sense of obligation, which can swell to fill any space and leaves you guilty no matter what you do, but a particular list. What did you actually receive from each person in your family? Patience? Courage? An education? Money? Example? Write it down. Then write down what was not given, or what was harmful, because honesty requires that too.nnYou will find that the list does two things at once. It makes you grateful for what was real, which is the right foundation for whatever you give back. And it frees you from debts that were never real, from the vague feeling that you owe everything to people who may have given you very little.nnThen act from gratitude rather than guilt. Gratitude gives freely, in proportion, and without resentment. Guilt gives grudgingly and never feels it has given enough. Remember too that everyone on the list, yourself included, will soon be gone. Do not waste the time quarrelling over the accounts.