Freedom from Family Expectations: Boundaries, Love, and Your Own Path

AVAlexander Volchek

A child's future is laid out very precisely: who they should become, what sport they should play, what profession they should have, which extracurricular activities they should attend, which school they should go to, right down to whom they should spend time with. This is pure slavery, a pure desire to own a person, to dictate their path. In general, a person does this because... If you meet with your mother or father only because you were given that assignment in a coaching program, it will not resolve any problem. Our task today is not to change our parents. Our task is to find the key to a solution. And this is the key to that solution.

AVAnna Volchek

Parents or people close to someone have certain expectations of their children or other loved ones, and they think they know what is right for them. Perhaps that is where all this advice, these conversations and recommendations come from, which very often provoke such negativity and irritation in response. Is this about expectations or not?

AVAlexander Volchek

Today we will take a broad approach to answering that question. The first thing to understand, right from the outset, is that a person feels ownership in their life; they want to feel that they own something in their life. And when parents declare, “But I'm your parent, I'm your mother,” or “I'm your father,” that is, first and foremost, an expression of a certain sense of ownership over another person. In fact, it is like slavery. A person clearly feels that they are the one who dictates the path, that they must be obeyed without question. Yet there was never any such agreement. We never signed that contract, that agreement. Of course, there are different peoples, religions and forms of agreement in different countries that more or less spell out the rules. Even so, we see how people struggle with this in today's world and how many conflicts arise when daughters or sons disagree with what is happening in their family. For example, there are countries where parents say that children must give all their money to their parents. Or there are countries where a girl's husband is chosen—where the parents choose her husband. Or there are families with an outlook that lays out a child's future very precisely: who they should become, what sport they should play, what profession they should have, which extracurricular activities they should attend, which school they should go to, right down to whom they should spend time with.

Countless films and other works have been made about this. It comes, above all, from a person's sense of ownership, and everyone needs to recognize this very clearly. Some people will dislike my words and say, “No, Alexander, how can you say that? It's not slavery.” It is slavery! It is pure slavery, a pure desire to own a person, to dictate their path. In a certain role, of course. Some parents are full-fledged rulers and slave owners, while others are gentler and more easygoing, but they are still doing the same thing, creating that kind of situation. That is the very first thing to establish when we begin looking at this. To drive that point home right away. Now... Why does a person generally do this? Fundamentally, because they feel ownership and a more important, a higher position over another person. It is the desire to feel that they hold a more important position than someone else. Just as bosses at work often feel that they hold a more important position than another person. In a family, a husband feels that he holds a more important, a higher position than his wife, or a wife than her husband. Or a wealthier person feels more important than other people, while those other people diminish themselves and feel that they occupy a lower position.

Of course, the person knows that you are their child and that they can give you instructions; they have been giving you instructions all your life. Take your own life, take your own life. You have been given a great many instructions. In fact, you have a very vivid example. As your brother, I personally saw many instances where it seemed to me that you were acting at your parents' direction rather than of your own free will. Making decisions at your parents' direction. Another aspect is that sometimes you seemed to make certain decisions not because your parents had instructed you to, but because you were afraid of hurting them, or afraid they would take it the wrong way. Or afraid they would misunderstand something, right? I probably did many things like that too, but I saw all of this in you. Personally, at least—and perhaps I'm wrong—from the outside it looked to me as though there was a whole range of things you did against your own wishes because your parents had told you to. So we can generally allow for the possibility that they established that position, established that approach to raising children, and conveyed—at least conveyed—the idea that they knew how things ought to happen and how things ought to be.

And as a child grows up, parents do have the right to know these things, for example, to set clear limits on certain actions or, conversely, to allow certain actions, depending on what the parent considers right or wrong, what the religion considers right or wrong, what the country considers right or wrong. Parents restrict a child in all kinds of areas. Again, they develop this sense of possessiveness. But here is the question: what else am I possessive about as a person? Am I possessive about my children, my employees, my wife or the people around me? Am I or aren't I? You always need to be aware of this within yourself. How do you really relate to another person? Do you see them as an entirely independent person? The fundamental point of your question is not about changing your parents. That is not the subject of today's discussion. It is about understanding what is happening on the other side and developing a way to perceive things calmly when interacting with people you find difficult to be around.

In this case, as I said, with relatives. That is the task: how do I find a solution that lets me respond appropriately to my relatives? And here we come to the question: what does “appropriately” mean? You gave examples involving parents where the parents were wrong. But there is also the reverse situation, where you cannot be around your relatives because you think they are wrong. Why does that impression arise? For the very same reason. Because most children—by “most,” I probably mean ninety-nine percent in today's world—are deceived. Deceived as they are brought up. Their parents constantly deceive them, their neighbors constantly deceive them, they are deceived at school. They are deceived. They are told that to get a job, you have to graduate from college. To earn a lot of money, you have to work very hard. To have a good wife or husband, you have to do certain things, and so on. They are given a whole set of ideas that ultimately have a very tenuous relationship to the truth. They are told, “To be healthy, you need to do this.” A person does it and, for example, gets sick. Or a person takes a certain action and something completely different happens.

A person feels deceived. They go to one class, and the teacher tells them one thing. They go to another class, and the teacher there tells them something completely different. On television, there is endless deception, simply endless deception. You are constantly manipulated through various events. They say, “There won't be a war.” A war happens. They say, “There won't be any earthquakes.” An earthquake happens. They say, “We know how to treat absolutely every disease.” Then new diseases appear that no one knows how to treat. All kinds of things happen that leave a child feeling deceived. And of course, the greatest concentration of that sense of deception is directed at the parent. Again, why is it directed most strongly at the parent? Because the parent feels that they own this child, tries to give them orders, to prove and impose the rightness of their own actions, to project and describe a plan for the child's life that does not fit with a huge number of things. It does not fit. All while retaining that desire for possessiveness and ownership. It is possessiveness.

And ownership. Here is a very good example: when someone dies and people cry, they are crying about how hard it will be for them without that person. Most people are crying about how hard it will be for them. Someone adds, “That's not why I'm crying at all. I'm crying because this person will miss out on a large part of life, won't see their grandchildren or great-grandchildren, won't visit certain countries.” Who told you that this person wanted to see grandchildren and great-grandchildren and visit certain countries? Who told you that at all? This comes up very often in the interaction between a child and a parent. Again, I am in no way saying that all parents are monsters, or that all the people on the other side of that relationship are monsters. Not at all. I am saying that these things are very pronounced in the social world, and that love and possessiveness arise and exist at the same time. Because of this, your reaction to your parents and many of your relatives is automatically projected onto them. An interesting thing happened to me in 2010—you may know about it, right? In 2010, when I decided to move to Moscow—and our father died in 2010.

Yes. I was visiting Moscow, and a relative said to me, “Sasha, you can't do this. Who are you leaving your mother with? And the house? Who is going to look after all of it?” Where did this person get those ideas? He is quite a good person, a good person in himself. Where did he get those ideas at all? Why was he expressing them? First of all, what made him think that—had he discussed in detail with my mother every aspect of how she saw things, the details of her life and everything else? Had he discussed with me why I made that choice, what lay behind it, what was difficult or easy about it? This person saw an outside problem that might theoretically arise for someone else and decided to project that problem onto me. He decided to project that problem onto me, although, really, he should have said, “Listen, you're making a major move. You have a very small child who was just born, your father has just died, and you're moving to another city, to a completely new job, a new life, a new home. Your mother, whom you've been used to being close to all your life, is staying behind on her own. Of course it will be very hard for you. It always is; being in that situation takes a great deal of effort. I wish you tremendous strength so that you can continue to work well, maintain respect within your family and preserve your relationship with your wife and child.

“So that you can go on living with a peaceful attitude, accepting your father's death, learning to maintain and develop your relationship with your mother, and having the strength and ability to help where you feel it is needed. And we will help where we feel it is needed.” In those circumstances, the conversation would probably be reasonable, reasonable in the way the situation is perceived. Instead, I was immediately put in a position where, supposedly, first of all, I owed something to someone—in this case, my mother—and second, I did not understand that. In fact, not only did I not understand it, I supposedly had no intention of doing it in the first place. I know a huge number of people who live in the same building as their parents, in the next entrance over, and see them once a year or once every five years. There are so many cases like that. An endless number. People do not call their parents, do not meet with them, do not spend time with them, do not discuss anything. Yet again, there is this feeling of possessiveness. When I was moving to America, I would periodically hear people say things about those who move to other countries: “You're leaving your country. It has given you so much. You should be grateful to it.”

Well, I lived twenty-seven years in Moscow and thirteen in Minsk—thirteen; I was born in Minsk, yes—and thirteen years in Moscow and twelve years in Moscow. Whenever I hear this, I listen and say, “Who ever told you that I owe anyone anything?” Perhaps the country owes me, because I created many different projects. I worked very hard. I paid an enormous amount in taxes to the country. I always helped people and treated the people living there, and the country itself, with respect. I always tried to contribute a great deal, to do a great deal, to carry out different projects. So perhaps the country owes me, rather than me owing it. Perhaps it should pay me money; perhaps it owes me something. Did I ever have any agreements with it about what I owed? Where did those agreements come from? How did they arise? Of course, there are formal agreements in the laws or citizenship requirements of various countries. But it is one thing to take on certain obligations at an age when I can make a conscious choice, and quite another to have them assigned to me at birth. I certainly did not know about them then. I am not sure I agree with many of those things.

Another matter is that there is the law. I am someone who obeys the law and has no intention of breaking it, but it does not say that I have no right to go and live in another country. So who said I owe anything? And if I do owe something, then put it in the constitution, put it in the law. An interesting question arises here: why do people convey this at all? Why do they say it? Why do they try to saddle you with the idea that you owe someone something? The very notion of obligation is interesting. And essentially, we come to one of the central questions in this video: do parents owe something to their child, or does the child owe something to their parents? Who owes whom? Do parents have an obligation to raise a child and support them their whole life? Or do parents have no obligation to raise the child, while the child must then support their parents their whole life? Or is there some combination? Who owes what to whom? Really, honestly. I think you and I were having a conversation with a dear, close friend of ours, and she said that in America it is customary, when people get married, for the parents to pay for the wedding. I chuckled and said, well— The bride's parents. The bride's parents, yes, sorry, the bride's parents.

Well, I have two daughters and two sons, yes. I chuckled, and our friend said, “Well, what would you do?” I said, “It is completely absurd to discuss this, first of all, right now. First of all, nothing is happening right now. Perhaps my child will never get married. Perhaps anything at all could happen before then. Perhaps they will not want to have a wedding celebration. The question is: do I have the right to insist on anything? And if they do want one, the question is: is it my right to decide whether or not I want to pay for it? My personal right, or the right of the family, or of the husband and wife, the people discussing this and making the decision. It is the parents' right to pay or not to pay, not their obligation, even if it is customary in society.” I also find it interesting to hear this from the standpoint of society. Which rules am I supposed to follow: Belarusian, Russian or American? Which ones? Am I supposed to mix them all together, or what? Pay everywhere at once, or not pay anywhere at all? Because in Belarus, as I understand it, the groom's parents pay for the wedding. Besides, it is very difficult to talk about this in today's society, because some people can be fabulously wealthy, while others can be fabulously poor.

Well, people probably don't say it that way, but very poor, and unable to pay for it. So what does that mean for me? Or someone says, “You have to split the cost equally.” But what if it is clear that the people cannot afford to do that? In my own life, for example, I would very much like to make an effort to think it through sensibly with my daughter or son, discuss it sensibly with the groom or bride, discuss it sensibly with the parents if the question arises. Discuss it. If the parents on the other side disagree with something, I certainly have the right to make my own decision, the decision I consider necessary, my own decision. So when you come home and your parents impose their own conventions on you—again, parents are fundamentally no different from any of the people we see around us who impose exactly the same kinds of conventions. The question is our reaction to what our parents say. Just our reaction, how we hear it. I know people—there is one person close to me, and she has a very good relationship with her mother, for example. Yet she does not take her mother's advice on serious matters. Whatever she says, however good her relationship with her mother is, however wonderful their relationship is in every way, when it comes to making decisions, she does not take her mother's advice at all.

UPUnidentified participant

—decisions, she doesn't take her advice. On serious things. She listens about some little things, but not about serious things.

AVAnna Volchek

A question came to me. Going back a little: you said there is a great deal of possessiveness in these relationships. Is there also some kind of fear involved? Do people behave this way toward their children or loved ones, for example, out of fear? In the example of the relative who pointed out whether you should or shouldn't leave, how difficult or easy it was, how good or bad it was to leave, say, your mother alone—could there be a personal fear in that situation that you are transferring onto someone else?

AVAlexander Volchek

Well, of course there is personal fear. It is like when you move away. I have moved twice in my life, and when I was moving to America, people started telling me about their own fears and projecting their problems. “There are strange people there. It's dirty there. It's expensive. Housing is expensive. It's hard to find a job. What will you eat? Where will you live? How will you sleep?” And so on. People convey their fears. Of course, on the one hand, that person was conveying fear. On the other hand, Anna, he was still conveying possessiveness, his own perspective on who owes whom. One of the main frameworks you need to sort out, and one of the key elements in this video—the key element—is who owes what to whom. As soon as you sort out that question, who owes what to whom, everything becomes absolutely clear.

AVAnna Volchek

So who owes what to whom?

AVAlexander Volchek

First of all, of course, no one owes anyone anything. There are basic obligations. If you borrowed money and signed a promissory note, you owe that money, right? If you made a promise. If you made a promise and genuinely expressed it, if a person did that. If there are reasonable agreements, yes, there are reasonable agreements. And why do I say so readily, right away, “No one owes anyone anything”? Again, someone will think I am describing the most extreme selfishness. No. Because I will add the next sentence: from there, you live and act humanely, as a human being, out of love for another person. Out of love for another person. This is very important. Within that love for another person, if she is your mother and you interact with her, you understand that she is the person who gave you life. You understand that she is someone you are incredibly deeply connected to. Or he is your father, and you are incredibly deeply connected to him. These are people close to you, people in your life. First and foremost, you treat them humanely. The moment the question of who owes what to whom arises, that task is both the task and the solution.

What should you do? You should immediately tell yourself, “The first thing I will do is start treating these people humanely.” Any person, any person—simply humanely. From there, I will make decisions based on my own perception, right? Everyone's perception is different. Some people want to see their parents every three days; others want to see them once every three years. Some want to see their aunts, uncles, brothers and sisters. Other people's lives have worked out in such a way that they haven't seen them and won't see them. That is how life has unfolded, how it has happened. That is a separate subject for conversation, a separate subject for discussion. But the most important thing is to treat people humanely. Because if you meet with your mother or father only because you were given that assignment in a coaching program, it will not resolve any problem. It will not resolve any problem. But if you meet with your mother and father because you know it is true and humane, it comes from love for that person, from compassion for that person, from the heart. It is an expression of your heart toward that person.

For example, you call your mother when you haven't spoken to her for many years, or you call your father, and you do it out of love. Or your brother or sister. Not because... I know that sometimes, to loosen up that kind of system, you need to carry out coaching assignments. But I can tell you, Anna, that because of my social circle—and it isn't small, the circle I have had over my forty-two years of life—a large circle of very different people, including people who attend all kinds of programs and coaching sessions, work on themselves, and so on... Anna, I have met many people where, during our meeting, I could see that the person had met with me because they had been given that assignment. More than once, I have seen people, including former partners of mine, apologize to me for their actions because they had been given that assignment in a coaching program. Do you know the most interesting thing? Nothing ever changed afterward. Can a coaching assignment create a resonance of the heart, a resonance of love, a resonance of virtue? So that you truly feel compassion for the person and apologize? In that case, sometimes you don't even need to apologize.

AVAnna Volchek

Are you just saying that most often—or rather, very often—a person approaches this very superficially, simply as some kind of assignment?

AVAlexander Volchek

That's not true.

AVAnna Volchek

Without actually living through it.

AVAlexander Volchek

It is not superficial. They take it seriously, but they cannot convey love to that other person. They cannot truly forgive them. They ask for forgiveness without it being genuine. They have not come to that realization. And many people interact with their parents because they have not realized this. That is also why their parents behave that way. I said at the very beginning of this video that our task today is not to change our parents. Our task is to find the key to a solution. And this is the key to that solution.