Dear gj:

More than a year ago, Feb 2018, you wrote: “For me, failure means… my parents and a sibling that I support… having always known that my family needs me”.

I mentioned loyalty being with the truth earlier. Isn’t it true that you are valued as a source of income. Is that why your mother cares that you remain physically healthy, so that you can produce income?

Isn’t it why she does the following: “wakes me up everyday”, so that you will be at work on time, 7:30 am? And isn’t it why she “even checks  on me from time to time- go bath, eat now, etc.”- to keep the source of income fed and presentable?

– I understand you live in south India, this is how things are- at least one child is brought into the world for the purpose of providing income to  aging parents, maybe for other siblings. I suppose it wouldn’t be so bad if the relationships in the home are good, loving. But without love, what you really have is slavery.

Your future then, if I understand correctly (and correct me if I am wrong) is that you live in the home where you live until you get married and when you get married, your mother, grandmother, father and sibling live with you and your husband.

Back to your post before last: “I am not sure what I should do with knowing all this”-

– I believe you don’t owe your parents anything, that you don’t have an ethical responsibility to finance them. But I understand this is not the society where you live. So, taking that into consideration, I suggest the only practical thing I can see: move out, immigrate to another country, away from your family, never to live with them again. You will have your own bedroom, your own home. As you work, in that other country, you can send your family money every month, a part of your paycheck.

This way, you will have a life, still partly enslaved, but not overwhelmingly enslaved, as you are now. In slavery-for-life there is no hope, no motivation, no dreams. But free, maybe when free?

anita