when your investment reaches maturity

There are a few constants to eating out in Lebanon. Fantastic flavours, getting full beyond belief, and – at the end – the big fight over who gets to pay the bill. Treating others is considered an honour and an obligation. It becomes part of the ritual. After the mezze, the meat, the fruit and the cardamom coffee, there is the moment where everyone tries surreptitiously to pull their wallet out and grab the waiter all without the others noticing. And the scuffle commences.

It’s universal…with one exception. Ask the Lebanese around you who pays when they dine out with their parents. No matter that they are pushing forty, have an office job in the city and often treat their pals out. Parents find it as natural to pay for their adult offspring as they did when they were mere schoolchildren.

In the West, kids are expected to start coughing up once they’ve found work, often in their late teens. Indeed, it is a confirmation of their independence, nurtured by parents and prized by young ones. Both generations take pleasure in this reversal of roles which marks an initiation to adulthood.

Not so the Lebanese. Parents continue to support their offspring financially whenever they are able. An 85-year old I know treats her son for a mid-morning coffee on a regular basis. The mere idea of one’s grown children footing the bill is an affront to the dignity of parents, a challenge to their role as providers, even once their children become providers for their own families.

Financial support is not the type  Read the rest of this entry »