Welcome to the Tscherpelinis. Today's Episode: „Responsibility“

Responsibility is a funny thing.

Recently, we found ourselves once again discussing who is actually responsible for what – and how much responsibility each person should carry.

This time, the trigger was our almost-grown-up son, who is currently living with us again. And as tends to happen when you are technically an adult but still sitting rather comfortably in the family nest, you want to have a say as an equal.

And our son certainly has a say.

About how we raise his little brother, for example – an area in which, according to him, we still have considerable room for improvement. About our life choices. About nutrition, exercise and probably also about things I hadn’t even realised people could have opinions about.

Most of the time, he doesn’t even mean any harm by it. Quite the opposite. His advice often comes from genuine interest, sometimes concern, and very often from the firm conviction that he is helping us by sharing his knowledge.

Still, it can become rather exhausting when another adult suddenly lives in your household who has an opinion on almost everything – and feels compelled to share it at every available opportunity.

Whether anyone wants to hear it or not.

Things become particularly interesting, however, when our son extends his expertise to my husband’s business. He is supposed to create the Instagram posts – but only in the way my husband wants them done. Our son, on the other hand, considers himself so vastly superior to his father when it comes to Instagram competence that he says so quite openly. Being expected to contribute merely the technical execution, rather than his creative genius as well, strikes him as an unreasonable restriction.

My two men are sitting on our rooftop terrace, each staring at his phone.

They are discussing a Reel. Thirty seconds long. Finished days ago. Still not online.

Then my son remarks that nobody watches that kind of thing anymore anyway.

I’m sitting in the living room and, at first, all I notice is the tone of their voices.

It takes less than two minutes for a harmless discussion to turn into a full-blown argument. My husband tries to reinforce his right to make the final decision by listing all the things he is responsible for:

The business. Finances. Bureaucracy. Flight bookings. Supporting our youngest. Household staff. Shopping.

And that list is nowhere near finished.

So while our son is mainly responsible for his own life and his own body, my husband feels responsible for pretty much the rest of the family.

And then there’s me – with a sphere of responsibility that is less clearly defined, but not necessarily any easier. I feel responsible for creating a sense of warmth and safety in our family and, somehow, automatically for the harmony as well.

Which can be quite challenging when you live with a husband and an almost-grown-up son who both know exactly how things ought to be done.

At times, my son reminds me of a young stag who has decided that the dominant male is exactly the one he wants to spar with.

So when the two of them start arguing about who is right, I often find myself sitting between them like a mediator at international peace talks.

I try to bring both parties back to the actual issue, translate misunderstandings and remind them that two people having different opinions does not necessarily mean the entire family system is about to collapse.

Nevertheless, it usually ends with me giving up, retreating to my four-poster bed – my personal sanctuary of inner peace – and leaving the two sparring partners to sort it out among themselves.

So perhaps the problem in the Tscherpelini household is not that nobody wants to take responsibility. Perhaps it is exactly the opposite.

Sometimes I think what we really need is a proper initiation ritual again.

In the past, a young person had to pass some kind of test, leave the nest, endure hardship or master some other challenge before being officially welcomed into the circle of adults.

Apparently, the Abitur didn’t quite do the job. In Captain Fantastic, the son has to kill a deer.

That seems slightly impractical in South Delhi.

Then again, perhaps it isn’t our son who needs the initiation ritual.

Perhaps it’s my husband. A small ceremony. Solemn. With witnesses. During which he is officially admitted into the circle of people who are able to hand something over without checking afterwards whether it was done properly.

He wouldn’t even have to kill a deer. Although, with his bow, he probably could.

How the Indian government would react if we went deer hunting in Deer Park, however, is something I would rather not find out.

Which leaves only one question:

How do I teach him that without triggering another bout of anxiety over losing control?

And just like that, we’re back to letting go.