When does a daughter's duty end?
elle.com
elle.com
Maybe I just don't get it. The answers to these questions are obvious and straight-forward. I wouldn't think twice about my responsibility to a person who molested me, beat my mom, and then "fucked off", let alone spend 4,000 words bloviating about it.
To your kids you have a (time-limited) responsibility because you brought them into this world without their consent. Everybody else in your family who's toxic should be cut off and never thought of again. Jesus Christ, life is too short to bother.
The author spends far fewer words on her sister's perspective (who seems to share the same opinion you do), but I think talking about it less is kind of the whole point -- as you say, the answers are obvious and straight-forward, so there isn't much to go in to. The author herself tries to hold this perspective, but ultimately finds she has a different one. One that includes, among other things, the need to write this story even after "it is finished".
A lot of the time there isn't much or any consideration given in case of abusive relationships. Even though I think we both agree on the fact that in such a situation any ties both morally and legally should be severed.
This Massachusetts law does excuse children who were not "reasonably supported" by their parents when they were a minor.
And those metrics of care most certainly do not include monetary contributions, just seeing that they get medical care, live in habitable lodgings, eat, etc.
Or so is my understanding of Virginia state law, I have a friend who's taken up such a responsibility towards her mother along with another sibling, but her mother generally refuses to keep her appointments with doctors.... My friend is worried about the liability that might arise from this.
burkaman believes otherwise ... but it'll be a cold day in hell before I accept anything WRT my mother like that (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12470409), on the other hand, it wouldn't even need to be enforced by the law if it was my father....
You don't have any choice if you are able to support your parents and they are "in necessitous circumstances". However, Virginia is very clear about excusing victims of abuse:
> This section shall not apply if there is substantial evidence of desertion, neglect, abuse or willful failure to support any such child by the father or mother, as the case may be, prior to the child's emancipation or, except as provided hereafter in this section, if a parent is otherwise eligible for and is receiving public assistance or services under a federal or state program.
My, that law is quite detailed, incorporates quite a bit more into it, and doesn't have the "through misfortune and without fault of his own" loophole.
Yuck. Is it, are any of these seriously and rigorously enforced? Or are they perhaps used for internecine fighting between siblings and/or parents?
ADDED: my home state of Missouri has not such law per ptaipale's citation (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12470488), so that might be why I'm ignorant of the laws of the states that do so. Hmmm, what if you live in one of those no responsibility states and your parent in a responsibility state?
In European Union, different member states have different practices. Germany and South European countries have laws and strong social norms that adult children must take care (or at least pay) for caring their old parents. Northern Europe does not (Nordic countries, Netherlands, Belgium, I understand Britain as well).
According to [0], 28 U.S. states make adult children responsible for their parents if their parents can't afford to take care of themselves.
In Russia, law also requires adult children to care for their parents (this I know for a fact due to an immigration case where I helped).
In China caring for old parents is an important responsibility of children, but I do not know how that is formulated in law.
[0] http://www.elderlawanswers.com/requiring-adult-children-to-p...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/china-parents-children-v...
I will start from the beginning to explain why. Keep in mind, I will talk from the point of view of Asian cultures.
When you are a child, your world is limited to your parents. You listen to them because that's what you are told to do by everyone else. You love them because that's what you are told to do. My mother kept on telling me to go under a bus because I am dumb, or I was not good looking. She told me to always tell myself that I am stupid and dumb and I will never achieve anything in life. But yea, she loved me too, in her own way; atleast that's what I like to think. So its not been exactly an easy childhood for me.
In no way, I have undergone what the author has experienced. But had that happened to me, what would I have done ?
The answer is complicated. What about compassion ? What about forgiveness ? And keep in mind, I am an atheist. But what do I gain by letting someone die ? Nothing.
I take a step back and try to understand from their point of view. Why did they do what they did ? There is always a reason. Maybe the author's father experienced abuse or had a rough childhood too. Maybe he wasn't loved enough. Maybe love and understanding is all he needed. Or I maybe wrong on every count. Who knows ?
So I will try to forgive and be compassionate towards everyone. Maybe because I don't have the balls to stand up and defend myself. Or maybe those feelings do not come to me at all. All I know is this is what I can do and will keep on doing. And hope that one day, everyone is kind to each other.
Life is hard; she probably did the best she could when dealt a less than enviable hand early in life.
Not my usual reading material, but a good read nevertheless.
A friend of mine, now over 50, still struggles with his mother's rejection throughout his childhood. He and his siblings have confirmed stories of malice (bleeding after being beaten by his mother with a whip, euthanising a much loved pet out of spite, etc).
Despite enduring years of torment, he still seeks his mother's affection. She died a long time ago and he never came to terms with the loss or the lack of love or the malice his mother frequently demonstrated.
It leaves me with a feeling of deep sadness when I see how cruel some parents are to their own children. It also leaves me even sadder when excuses are made for some of these abusers (she must have suffered depression, poor woman).
Having said that, as someone who is both an atheist, and someone who has had family members killed by another person, I have had both the time, and the rare circumstance to think about this a lot.
I've become aware of the fact that we need to forgive, despite whatever has wronged us. This is the only possible way to prevent the cycle of hate breeding hate.
I know it sounds like a defeatist point of view, but it's actually a multi-generational view. It's also a view of acceptance, and one that holds that no matter what has been done to you, you will hold true to the tenet of forgiveness.
Possibly the most important thing for humans of the modern age to realize is that life deals you a random hand. Any actions that perpetuate this unfairness to the next generation or beyond are wrong, despite how right they may feel.
This is probably the only path that conscious evolution can take that doesn't continue the current cycle of hatred breeding hatred.
Sorry to sound like a hippy, but it took me over a decade to arrive at this conclusion after a whole lot of nasty stuff happening. Hopefully you will never need to go through that process, and will take my viewpoint as a valid piece of anecdata.
TL;DR: despite what other people do to you, it's in the best interests of humanity if you show forgiveness, but do all you can that it never happens to another person.
As a generally calm person I think it is enough to just freeze your hate and forget about it until [maybe never happening] moment, when you'll bring revenge while losing nothing. Forgiveness is for you to go through it, not to let them go.
We then enter into the realms of how to deal with perpetrators. Isolation vs. rehabilitation vs. eradication.
I prefer rehabilitation over isolation, and both over eradication.
This is one of the roles of government, and thus we enter a whole new world of discussion.
People don't often deserve to be forgiven but the victim deserves to move on and through some weird irony of human psychology that often requires forgiving someone who has no right to be forgiven.
the people he or she has abused? nope
Wow, reading this hurts me because it makes me feel so privileged in life for having the family I had. That phrase is a terrible rationalization of her situation.
Volunteering with kids that are drugs addicts or have other addictions, troublemakers that will enter a bank or shops to rob you always find a dysfunctional family: the father alcoholic, the mother with several lovers,or with psicological problems, beating the children because they hate them and never desire to have them, the kid alone all day.
You become a parent for them because they desperately need it. Some times the only thing they need is a reference in life.
I agree a parent that does not take care of his children should not expect to be taken care of as adult, but in European countries there are laws that force you to do it, a heavy burden.
Got any references for me to lookup? I wasn't aware of any such laws.
http://www.dw.com/en/should-children-have-to-pay-for-parents... for Germany. That's from 2010.
That's from some searching on "Europe children taking care of parents law" and "Germany children taking care of parents law". I didn't try other variants for other countries.
"The summer before I turned 13, my father got pretty gnarly brain cancer and told me and my sister to fuck off, though he used the Christian phrasing. And then he survived brain cancer and lived another 19 years. So that was awkward."
And a poignant one:
"I was in utero when my mother left my father. Her one great moment of bravery was defying the Baptist church and walking out on her abusive husband with a two-year-old and a half-done bun in the oven. I think she relied so heavily on her backbone in that moment that she was never able to stand up for herself again."
I remember reading research some years ago that concludes humans are incredibly bad at predicting how they would feel in a situation that they have never been in, and the accuracy of the prediction had zero correlation with how strongly the subject was convinced.
Yes, there are people who you're technically that close to, who you are obliged to "honor", to whom you (eventually) owe nothing, and like in this case, who fully deserve to die alone, and most decidedly unloved.
Although I'll draw one distinction here, it's the sins against another that crossed the final line for me, the one where I've sworn to never speak to her again (modulo someone else's life being in danger). Sin against me, that can be not just understood but forgiven, but against an innocent (enough) 3rd party is somehow different.
(And for a bit more pathos, by her order in 20 days I'll be completely out of the loop and living in the house built in 1910 I recently bought and have been remodeling, seeing as I'm the only sibling who's in the same town, have been living with him for the last 5 years on land she alone owns, and is the one most strongly objecting to her treatment of him.)