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agonyaunt2022-10-18 05:07 pm
ermingarden) wrote in agonyaunt2022-10-18 05:07 pm
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The Ethicist: I’m Supporting My Adult Son. He Just Gave $1,000 to a Homeless Woman.
I have raised two sons without financial help from their father and recently put the oldest through college. He is now 23 and is working a minimum-wage job. He finds it tedious, but he’s stuck with it while he looks for better opportunities.
He lives at home, and I don’t charge him for anything, even though his food, cellphone, car insurance and car-maintenance expenses all add up to substantial sums. I figure he needs to save up funds so that he can eventually become independent and move into his own apartment. (He pays for his gas, work lunches and outings with friends.) His younger brother will start college in two months, so I am preparing for another four years of significant expenses. These costs will strain my budget; although I work full time, I will add weekend hours to my schedule.
We live in Los Angeles and frequently witness the sad plight of destitute people living in tents throughout our neighborhood. Recently, my son drove past a homeless woman with two small children and stopped to give her some money. He had no cash and instead got her cellphone number so that he could send her money through a payment app. He gave her $1,000 — nearly half his savings.
He described this incident to me at the end of the day and said he knew I would be proud of him, “because you’ve raised me to care about people who have less than us.” Holding back tears of frustration, I said I was proud of him for being such a good-hearted person. And I am proud of his generous spirit; I’m also frustrated that he gave so much of his savings, when he could have either saved up or contributed to the expenses that I struggle to cover for him. I felt that while his behavior was kind, it was also impulsive and irresponsible. I felt too that the money he gave away was not entirely his own; he had it only as a result of me working hard to cover most of his expenses. I know this is the wrong way to feel — when you give something to someone, it’s theirs to do what they want with it, right?
I couldn’t sleep that night, wondering whether I was an ogre for resenting his extreme generosity toward those in genuine need of help — or a floor-mat mom who has failed to teach my son a sense of personal responsibility. Going forward, I plan to charge him for 50 percent of his costs, e.g., his car insurance, cellphone and a portion of the grocery bill. I don’t want these charges to seem like I’m punishing him for his kindness, but I worry that he won’t develop a sense of financial responsibility unless he pays for at least some expenses. Should I have reacted differently? Name Withheld
Let’s agree that people who have some resources have a duty of charity and that the duty is what Kant called an “imperfect” one, in the sense that it’s not owed to anybody in particular. Giving a large amount of money to one random stranger, about whose life, needs and struggles you know very little, isn’t necessarily the best way of fulfilling this duty. Genuine benevolence should be guided by conscientious reflection, deliberation and reason.
Your son works at a minimum-wage job, so this money was the equivalent of many hours of work. What he recounted to you, though, was an impulse of spontaneous generosity — he was moved to act, and he acted — and spending more time learning about this mother’s situation could have resulted in a more valuable and lasting gift. One also thinks about the greater good that a more carefully targeted donation might have achieved. That doesn’t end the conversation. In my view, charitable giving needn’t maximize benefits as measured in some objective way; we can direct our benevolence to our own communities (and perhaps also support anti-malarial initiatives in Guinea).
But taking a more local perspective suggests another problem here: As long as he’s your dependent, his finances are enmeshed with yours. Yes, it’s his money. All the same, there was something disrespectful or, at the very least, heedless about his giving away half his savings without consulting the person who supports him and who is struggling to cope with looming expenses. Being a member of a household carries responsibilities of mutual concern and care.
You’re right to worry that this impulsive act suggests that he hasn’t learned to be responsible with his resources. The self-admiring way he described the incident to you as he extracted your approbation suggests extravagance as much as compassion, perhaps reflecting a kind of moral grandiosity. Given his incaution about spending down his savings, you can wonder, too, how intent he really is on securing his own apartment and living independently. So it might indeed be a good idea to tell him that you’re going to ask him to cover some of his own costs. It could help him gain a sense of responsibility, as you say; it could also help relieve some of the financial burden you’ve had to shoulder. This may well be a case in which charity properly begins at home.
He lives at home, and I don’t charge him for anything, even though his food, cellphone, car insurance and car-maintenance expenses all add up to substantial sums. I figure he needs to save up funds so that he can eventually become independent and move into his own apartment. (He pays for his gas, work lunches and outings with friends.) His younger brother will start college in two months, so I am preparing for another four years of significant expenses. These costs will strain my budget; although I work full time, I will add weekend hours to my schedule.
We live in Los Angeles and frequently witness the sad plight of destitute people living in tents throughout our neighborhood. Recently, my son drove past a homeless woman with two small children and stopped to give her some money. He had no cash and instead got her cellphone number so that he could send her money through a payment app. He gave her $1,000 — nearly half his savings.
He described this incident to me at the end of the day and said he knew I would be proud of him, “because you’ve raised me to care about people who have less than us.” Holding back tears of frustration, I said I was proud of him for being such a good-hearted person. And I am proud of his generous spirit; I’m also frustrated that he gave so much of his savings, when he could have either saved up or contributed to the expenses that I struggle to cover for him. I felt that while his behavior was kind, it was also impulsive and irresponsible. I felt too that the money he gave away was not entirely his own; he had it only as a result of me working hard to cover most of his expenses. I know this is the wrong way to feel — when you give something to someone, it’s theirs to do what they want with it, right?
I couldn’t sleep that night, wondering whether I was an ogre for resenting his extreme generosity toward those in genuine need of help — or a floor-mat mom who has failed to teach my son a sense of personal responsibility. Going forward, I plan to charge him for 50 percent of his costs, e.g., his car insurance, cellphone and a portion of the grocery bill. I don’t want these charges to seem like I’m punishing him for his kindness, but I worry that he won’t develop a sense of financial responsibility unless he pays for at least some expenses. Should I have reacted differently? Name Withheld
Let’s agree that people who have some resources have a duty of charity and that the duty is what Kant called an “imperfect” one, in the sense that it’s not owed to anybody in particular. Giving a large amount of money to one random stranger, about whose life, needs and struggles you know very little, isn’t necessarily the best way of fulfilling this duty. Genuine benevolence should be guided by conscientious reflection, deliberation and reason.
Your son works at a minimum-wage job, so this money was the equivalent of many hours of work. What he recounted to you, though, was an impulse of spontaneous generosity — he was moved to act, and he acted — and spending more time learning about this mother’s situation could have resulted in a more valuable and lasting gift. One also thinks about the greater good that a more carefully targeted donation might have achieved. That doesn’t end the conversation. In my view, charitable giving needn’t maximize benefits as measured in some objective way; we can direct our benevolence to our own communities (and perhaps also support anti-malarial initiatives in Guinea).
But taking a more local perspective suggests another problem here: As long as he’s your dependent, his finances are enmeshed with yours. Yes, it’s his money. All the same, there was something disrespectful or, at the very least, heedless about his giving away half his savings without consulting the person who supports him and who is struggling to cope with looming expenses. Being a member of a household carries responsibilities of mutual concern and care.
You’re right to worry that this impulsive act suggests that he hasn’t learned to be responsible with his resources. The self-admiring way he described the incident to you as he extracted your approbation suggests extravagance as much as compassion, perhaps reflecting a kind of moral grandiosity. Given his incaution about spending down his savings, you can wonder, too, how intent he really is on securing his own apartment and living independently. So it might indeed be a good idea to tell him that you’re going to ask him to cover some of his own costs. It could help him gain a sense of responsibility, as you say; it could also help relieve some of the financial burden you’ve had to shoulder. This may well be a case in which charity properly begins at home.