Conversation: What do we owe our kids?
A reading of the play Alcestis by Euripides has led to hot debate among friends at the senior center book club over what we owe in family relationships. In the play, as decreed by the gods, King Admetus must die. He asks his father or mother to change places with him and is astonished when both parents refuse. His father says,
Thy road of life is thine. . .
All that was owed to thee by us is paid.
Instead, Admetus’ wife Alcestis steps in to take his place in death but she makes him to promise not to remarry because a stepmother
. . . might hate [the children]. She might be some baser woman, not a queen like me,
And strike them with her hand.
The opinions in the book club are divided about these final solutions. Do you think these characters are selfish, selfless, nervy, or heroic?