My cousin and I are trying to figure out how to honor our grandmother's teaching about ubuntu while also setting boundaries with family members who keep asking for financial help we can't really afford to give. We both feel the weight of being the 'successful ones' in the family but we're starting to resent the assumption that our individual success means we owe everyone everything, and we don't know how to navigate this without betraying the values she taught us about interconnectedness.
More people experience this than they realize.
The tension between ubuntu's call for mutual support and the practical limits of what any individual can sustainably give creates a painful bind between values and reality.
“Where Are You with African ubuntu and intergenerational responsibility?”
If this sounds familiar, the Library can help you find the bigger picture.