Pain and a Son’s Duty: A Philosopher’s Choice

A few long wisps of hair scatter across her small, white head. The stark baldness accentuates her ears, which seem bigger now, alone behind her sunken eyes. These days her mouth is often slightly ajar, not so much for need of oxygen but because weakening facial muscles no longer press the jaw shut. Her head droops a bit. She seems to be falling into herself.

My mother has cancer. It’s not too surprising: She is 76 and has smoked heavily for more than 50 years. It’s bad, though. Stage four. Inoperable. Metastasized. The chemo didn’t stop it and made her sick. She’s off all that now, regaining some strength, but only in time for the cancer to worsen and drag her down permanently.

Her illness has transformed our relationship. Before the cancer, I connected mostly by phone. Our distance was deliberate. I wanted a cushion between our incompatible daily habits. She didn’t want me disparaging her foibles. When the malignancy was discovered, however, I had to intervene.

At first, I drove her to the chemo sessions once a week. But when the harsh drugs landed her in the hospital for the third time, I made the decision that she could not go home. A visiting nurse had called an ambulance when she realized that home care was not working. Despite the nurse’s unambiguous assessment, my mother demanded to return to the house she had lived in for 48 years. I had to say no.

She could not move in with me: My wife and I care for our profoundly disabled 12-year-old son as well as our abled 10-year-old daughter. We never know when his condition will require us to drop everything and head for the hospital. I could not add my mother to our daily household duties.

So, it was a nursing home. Nothing I wanted, and certainly not anything she wanted, but something we could not avoid. I pleaded with her to make it happen. She cried, and I coldly stood my ground. It hurt both of us, but eventually she moved to a place in my town where I can pick her up and bring her home for dinner.

It has worked out for the better. Her health has improved, she has regained her spirits and we have reconnected as mother and son in a new way.

But I have needed reassurance. I had worked against her desire to return home. My actions violated her personal autonomy. What right did I have to overrule her wishes? Legally she was still competent to make up her own mind. Would it have been better to let her decide for herself, even if it meant worse care and greater physical discomfort?

I have turned these questions over in my head and found answers in a thinker unfamiliar to many Americans: Mencius (372-289 BC), a Chinese philosopher and follower of Confucius.

Mencius believed fervently in filial piety. A son or a daughter, Confucians famously maintained, must obey his or her parents while they are alive and venerate them when they are dead. Confucius gave advice that seems well suited to my situation:

In serving your mother and father, admonish them gently. If they understand, and yet choose not to follow your advice, deepen your reverence without losing faith. And however exhausting this may be, avoid resentment. (Analects 4.18)

So, I should have deepened my reverence and not lost faith when she said she wanted to go home. Maybe I failed the filial test. But Mencius, and Confucius, were attuned to the complexities of ethical judgment. They understood that context is everything. This is evident in one of the lessons Mencius drew from the legend of Shun, a mythical emperor.

Shun was said to be reverently filial, even though his father, who had tried to kill him on at least two occasions, was evil and deranged. When young, Shun knew he had to get married because to have no heir would be the worst offense against his parents. But he also realized that his father, in all his depravity, would not allow any marriage to take place. To do the right thing by his parents he would have to defy them. What to do? Shun secretly wed and did not tell his parents. He disobeyed and deceived them to secure the greater good of producing an heir.

To Mencius, Shun’s solution was ingeniously honorable. What appeared to work against his parents in the short run benefited them in the end. In legend, Shun’s father came to see his son’s virtue and the two reconciled. Mencius wrote that Shun:

... knew that if you don’t realize your parents you aren’t a person, and if you don’t lead your parents to share your wisdom you aren’t a child.

The trick in acting against the stated preferences of your parents is to do something that really is good for them. A nursing home is not enough for my mother. I have to keep myself involved in her life and her care. Having her near, however, is a good thing for both of us; perhaps the decision to stop her from going home was the right one.

I do not have the wisdom of Shun, or Mencius, yet when I see my mother sitting on my back porch, smiling and watching her grandchildren run and laugh and play in the backyard, I feel better about a hard choice.