Dear Owl:

Your thinking reads accurate to me, insightful, sensible, realistic and true. I agree with you that it is not an issue of culture, on the part of his parents, but an issue of selfishness. I would add, it is an issue of power. Maybe much of culture is about power, parents maintaining power over their adult children.

It really is not a choice between his family and you, but between him submitting to their power, unfair to him, and exerting power over his own life.

The power parents have over their young children extends into all cultures. It is something common to the human species as well as to many other animal species. Many parents take it upon themselves to extend their power into their child’s adult life.

I don’t think you can match their power over him, even if you were interested in exercising power over him. The power they have over him was established long ago, way before he became a doctor, and his ability to make a good living has nothing to do with it.

You wrote that you don’t know what to do. What I would do if I was you, at the most, would be to express to him clearly what is happening here, which you described perfectly and I repeated and elaborated on, just a bit, and let it go, let him be. Simply because there is nothing else that you can do.

I hope you post again with your thoughts and feelings.

anita