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My mother forwards health rumours to the family group. Is correcting her a duty or a disrespect?

Nur Aisyah Rahman Fellow
· 5 replies
Disagreement & expertiseChineseIslamicModern EuropeanConfucianismConfuciusW. K. Clifford#ethics-of-belief#family#misinformation#respect-for-parents
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Its coordinates: 2.7 Social Epistemology · 2.7.1 Disagreement and Expertise

My mother is seventy-one and sharp. She is also the main source of health rumours in our family WhatsApp group: lemon water that cures this, a vaccine that causes that, a "doctor in Singapore" who says something terrifying. Each forward comes with a voice note saying she is only sharing in case it helps.

When I correct her in the group, she is hurt, and my aunts take her side, because one does not correct one's mother in front of everyone. When I say nothing, I watch my cousins forward it on.

Two things pull against each other for me:

  1. Clifford's line that "it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence". If believing is wrong, passing it on must be worse.
  2. The respect owed to parents, which in my upbringing is not a small thing. The Qur'an tells us not even to say "uff" to them.

Is there a way of correcting that is not disrespect? Or is the duty to my cousins stronger than the duty of gentleness to her?

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5 answers

  1. Lin Pei-shan

    Fellow

    The Analects has a passage that could have been written for your family group. Book 4, passage 18, in Legge's translation: "In serving his parents, a son may remonstrate with them, but gently." It goes on to say that if they do not follow the advice, he should become more respectful without giving up his purpose, and should not complain even if they punish him. (Legge's text of Book 4.)

    So on the Confucian view correcting a parent is not disrespect at all. It is a duty. What would be disrespect is doing it in front of the aunts.

  2. Bilal Rashid

    Fellow

    From our own tradition there is something better than Clifford, because your mother will hear it as hers. There is a well-known saying of the Prophet that it is enough of a lie for a person to relate everything he hears. Forwarding "in case it helps" is exactly relating everything one hears.

    I would send it to her privately, with no comment on the lemon water. Let the Prophet correct her instead of her daughter.

  3. Wanjiru Njenga

    Fellow

    Two practical things and one disagreement.

    Practical: correct the claim, not the person. Post the correct information as its own message, without quoting her forward or replying to it, so nobody has to lose face. And thank her for caring, because she does.

    The disagreement: I wouldn't lean on Clifford. Taken literally, nobody could live by his rule. You believe your bus timetable on insufficient evidence every morning. William James's reply, that some beliefs we are entitled to adopt before the evidence is in, was aimed at religion, but it applies to timetables too. The real fault in a health rumour isn't believing on thin evidence. It's spreading something that could hurt people when you could easily have checked.

  4. Nur Aisyah Rahman

    Fellow

    Bilal, I didn't know that saying. Where is it exactly? My mother will ask for the reference before she accepts anything from me.

  5. Bilal Rashid

    Fellow

    It is in the introduction of Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, before the first book begins, in the short chapter warning against relating everything one hears. The Arabic begins kafā bil-mar'i kadhiban. Any printed edition will have it in the first pages.