Have been thinking about this for some time.

"what to say before you die" - one way to put it

quote:

Like an ordinary will, the ethical will offers a set of instructions to be followed after death; but instead of monetary directives, it offers moral advice.

This popped up this morning. Seemed appropriate to post it here; sort of a video ethical will.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news...r-AANClTh?li=BBnb7Kz

The assumption of a parent that he or she has "words of wisdom" to impart to grown children seems presumptuous and arrogant to me. If a moral will isn't requested by one's children, then it likely won't be valued by them. Age does not bestow wisdom on all who are old. And if adult children don't ask for a parent's guidance in life, they surely aren't interested in their guidance from the grave. Plus, reprimands? How lovely would that be to have shame and guilt heaped on you by the deceased to haunt you for the rest of your life.

This tradition reminds me all over again why Jewish familial patterns and I don't get along.

I think it is fine to share what has worked in your life, and what you have valued. But there comes a time when you stop giving your unsolicited advice to adult children.

We have not quite reached that yet, but she's still in her 20's.

A reprimand from the grave is simply cruelty. It can serve no other purpose.

Kind of related, my FIL recorded about 4 hours of his mother telling stories when she was in her late 90's. Her mind was sharp until the day she passed at age 100.

There is a little moralizing in those recordings but mostly it's simple things - first date, earliest memories, first car ride, first airplane sighting, various wars, food, family, sharecropping, the depression, etc. Granny always had a very sunny disposition and her stories are a pleasure to listen to.

We've had the VHS recordings converted to DVDs and they are among our most treasured possessions. I look forward to playing them for her great-great grandchildren.

We have so much wisdom posted in WTF and TNCR and (for some) Facebook, we’re good to go.

My sister received a gift from one of her kids that's sort of a "20 questions," similar to Steve's note about his FIL's recording. Boy, what I wouldn't give for a recording like that from my parents...

But the gift in question is something where every week she receives a question along the same lines--"What was your favorite dinner when you were a kid?" "Who was your favorite teacher, and why..." etc. She answers the questions (one per week for a year) and at the end of the year her answers are bound and published into a book that everyone receives.

I guess I'm slightly in pique's camp (and a few others). If I have the sort of relationship with my loved ones where they would "hear" my beyond the grave advice, it seems like the proper time to have given that advice was before I kicked off. It seems more than a little passive-aggressive to me.

I can see a potential purpose. If you think someone is on the wrong path, and is somewhat locked on that path, maybe a message from beyond the grave can jolt them off of it. Maybe.

But it seems that the greater possibility is that it will cause more harm than good.

FWIW, wills do serve something of this purpose, in a passive-aggressive way. Mom isn't leaving you her money, or is setting up a trust, so that you don't get the proceeds for a while? Or, Mom is leaving a treasured possession to a particular child? What do you suppose THAT means?

To be fair, if you want to be aggressive from beyond the grave, it almost has to be passive…

quote:

Originally posted by Doug:
To be fair, if you want to be aggressive from beyond the grave, it almost has to be passive…

I dare say!

If you read the examples here drawn from Jewish history you will see the purpose of such "wills" can be (and mostly were) less tut-tut admonitions than attempts to summarize lessons learned from personal experience or that of others', that one wishes to pass on to ones heirs.

They are more the fruits of observations, personal regrets (often painfully learned), and good wishes one hopes to transmit to those one loves rather than "rebukes", shaming or attempts to control beyond the grave.

If any of you have a miniaturized (Peter Pauper size) "Wisdom of the Fathers" edition ("Pirkei Avot") you will see what I mean, even though the style from then (300BC-200 CE) varies so much across the centuries.

I interpret such ethical bequests, as expressions of love, aimed at taking advantage of that last opportunity to benefit the ones they are leaving. Those long dead teachers left their heirs these nuggets of their most profound wisdom and life lessons. ("My father/my mother - my teacher" is the classic form of address for ones parents in Jewish tradition" granting - pique! - that many parents don't come close to earning that honorific.).

These lessons could include anything one hopes can enrich ones offspring - specifically distinct from material wealth. (Such a contrast to the transfer of dynastic wealth, so much in the news today. Namely, how to maximize the earthly treasure parents can pass to heirs, by minimizing any taxes forcibly subtracted from it otherwise destined for the unrelated collectivity.). But as one of their millennia-old maxims says: "a shroud has no pockets."

The immaterial wealth in an "ethical will" can include recipes, ones life stories (such as Steve described) and instructive lessons learned through experience (basically, treasures that cannot be bought or sold.).

I doubt any parent who has not earned the love and respect of his children is unaware of that sad fact along with the unlikelihood of his "last words" ever being listened to attentively.

A litany of dos, don'ts, recriminations or warnings wouldn't be studied - unless perhaps, they were linked to conditions determining mercenary inheritances (i.e., decisions that might nullify a bequest - such as a marriage or professional choice viewed with disfavor).

The resentment some of you express in regards to the instructional wills you imagine, doesn't take into realistic consideration such parents' awareness of their "unpopularity" with their heirs. They know their last words, would never be listened to enough to even justify the work of putting them together.

Ultimately, any truly valuable "ethical will" requires a great deal of love and effort to write. That love and abiding concern would be felt by the heirs, already raised with earned admiration and respect for their parents. If it weren't there, such a testament would be disregarded if it were read at all. (Unlikely as it is that the would-be benefactor would even bother to write it, already aware it was too late.)

The only exception to such a rule, might be parents who had wronged their children. If they took that opportunity to beg forgiveness while attempting to explain "where they were coming from" they might successfully get through. If so, they might manage to avert their offsprings' re-living their own errors - something they might fervently wish both for the heirs' sake and their own.

If they have advance warning, I think even the most misguided parents contemplate with concern, the intangible legacies they leave behind - those made up of memories, influences and example. Apart from those believing in eternal life, they know their ultimate bequest is how they are remembered - long out of their control.

Perhaps those of us who bristle at the thought of being left an instructional manual by parents who did us harm, are assuming such parents would be continuing their past pattern of misdeeds. AFAIC parents who go to the considerable, loving trouble of leaving personalized guidance for their children, are living out their wish of continuing to care for them beyond their lifespan. Such children would already remember those parents' history of loving care and read their messages receptively.

(I am remembering the touching story of the dying mother of young children, who devoted considerable time in her last year to preparing letters for them to be opened at milestone birthdays and events - a daughter's first love affair, a son's graduation, the birth of a first grandchild. The daughter who wrote of the box of her mother's painstaking messages, describes how they left her the priceless gift of knowing throughout her growing up, how profoundly she had been loved by the the mother of whom she has scarcely any real life memories.)

Without the love that empowered her mother to prepare these sensitive letters for a future she herself would never see, they'd never have been written in the limited time remaining her. Even in such tragic circumstances, though, a loving parent can leave a child an "ethical will" that changes her life forever. That daughter knows how deeply and genuinely she was loved from her earliest days.