Family ( Archived) (12)

Some people just don't get along with their family, so if this is the case, are you obligated to spend time with them/show up to family functions?

Surely that would depend upon why you don't get along and which family member(s)?

If your parents treated you with the utmost care and sincerity, but had less social status than yourself, it would seem churlish to reject their needs on the basis of snobbery.

But if your parents beat you with a big stick and stubbed cigarettes out on you, I wouldn't have said it would be healthy to feel obligated to socialise with them.

A second cousin twice removed and then put back again who pulls spiders' legs off with glee might not be owed much, either.

Is there any such thing as 'just not getting along'?

agree

I'm saying that families who don't get along, don't get along for a reason, or reasons.

Not getting along is not a random thing, ergo one's obligation to family is tempered by those reasons.

We cannot judge if obligation to family is right, or wrong, in a random manner as the Lala set the question. We must qualify our judgement with knowledge of the situation, just as with any loyalty.

If the question was asked, should someone be committed to their marriage, we would want to qualify that with the circumstances. We would not expect to someone to stay committed to a marriage where their partner had affairs and/or was violent towards them, nor would we expect forgetting to put the toothpaste cap back on be reasonable grounds for divorce.

I don't think commitment, or obligation to family stands on its own as a concept very well, unless we're prepared to disregard constructive and destructive elements which could be to our own, or other's detriment.