Charity begins at home

CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME
Introduction
Charity begins at home is a social message. It emphasizes the need to love our family and work for their betterment before we venture to improve the society. It implies that a person who is insensitive to the needs of his family members and is involved in social causes cannot be called all that great. He can never be content and happy in life.
Our Parents are Our First Teachers
It is rightly said that our parents are our first teachers. We learn a lot from them. Children observe their parents and begin to inculcate their habits subconsciously. After a certain period of time, most of them begin to behave and react in a similar manner as their parents. It thus becomes the duty of the parents to behave responsibly. ‘Charity begins at home’ has two interpretations. One of these is that if the parents are involved in charity, the kids shall learn and inculcate this habit too.
As explained above, children imbibe the gestures and mannerisms of their parents knowingly or unknowingly and begin to behave in a similar way. The phrase, charity begins at home’ implies the same. However, here the writer is specifically talking about indulging in charitable acts. If the parents and grandparents are involved in charitable tasks, the children will carry forward the legacy.
However, people must first ensure that their close relations are intact and that they have fulfilled all their responsibilities at home. Only when they have ensured this should they go ahead and indulge in charitable tasks.
Fables Related to ‘Charity Begins at Home’
There are many moral stories that explain this phrase. One such story with a deep moral lesson is as follows:
Once upon a time, a king decided to visit distant areas of his kingdom to see how the people of his kingdom were doing. He spent hours walking on foot to meet people and understand their needs. As he came back to his palace, he was extremely tired and his feet hurt badly as he had to walk on stony paths which he wasn’t used to. Since he wanted to visit the place regularly to connect better with his people and serve them, he ordered his men to cover the entire land with leather so that he wouldn’t have to face similar pain again.
Now, this meant slaughtering thousands of animals in order to get leather from their skin. Though the idea did not seem great, his servants nodded in affirmation just when one of them gathered the courage to give him an alternate idea. He said that instead of slaughtering so many animals to cover the entire land, why doesn’t he just get his feet covered by leather to avoid them from hurting. The king liked the idea and went for it.
Thereafter, he went to distant areas within his kingdom and worked upon improving his kingdom and the life of the people living there. This was only possible with a pair of shoes. Without them he would not have been able to visit these areas so often and would not have been able to connect well with his people and work for their betterment.
The story gives a meaningful message. In order to help others, we must first help ourselves. The phrase, ‘charity begins at home’ suggests the same. We should first help ourselves and those close to us only then we shall be able to do good to the society.
The phrase, ‘charity begins at home’ is a lesson that each one of us must imbibe. It stresses upon the fact that in order to help others and make this society a better place to live we must first work upon ourselves and cater to the needs of our close ones. However, it should not end there. Once these basic responsibilities are fulfilled, we must go out and help those in need.
The original meaning of this proverb was that a person’s first responsibility is for the needs of their own family and friends. However, nowadays the ‘home’ referred to is frequently not an individual household, but the UK as a whole. When discussing overseas aid, this phrase is often used to argue that the UK should tackle its domestic problems before spending money to help those in need abroad.
This phrase is bandied around as if it’s some kind of universally acknowledged truth — like ‘practice makes perfect’ or ‘scissors beat paper’ — which automatically trumps any other argument. Really, it’s just a group of words which doesn’t make that much sense if you encourage people to think about it for a while.
The point of charity is to help those who need it most. Imagine if someone’s house burned down, and their next door neighbour refused to help because they had rising damp in their walls and so needed to sort that out first because, after all, ‘charity begins at home’. Only the most heartless person would do that, right? The scale and urgency of need must surely be taken into account when deciding where charity is deserved.
Those of us living in the UK are very fortunate that our collective ‘home’ has wealth in abundance. It may not feel like it at times — to someone on a zero-hours contract struggling to pay the rent it must feel like a kick in the teeth to be told they’re fortunate to live in a rich country. The truth is, there is an enormous amount of wealth in this country which could be put to use solving domestic problems if only the British public would vote for policies aimed at tackling economic inequality. In much of the developing world, no matter who they vote for (if they even get to vote) they will still be poor.
It’s hard to even imagine the hardship which exists in some parts of the world. The scale and urgency of their problems make ours seem small by comparison. In the UK it is (quite rightly) a national scandal that so many people are reliant on food banks; in Chad, people routinely starving to death doesn’t even make the headlines. Here, the NHS is experiencing a funding crisis; in Malawi, there is no universal healthcare and medical services are struggling to cope with an AIDS crisis. Here, it is claimed that the ongoing Brexit debate is tearing the country apart; in Colombia, lives, families and communities have been torn apart by decades of civil war.
We have the resources in this country to tackle our domestic problems and help those in need overseas. It doesn’t have to be a choice. Many countries around the world have significant and urgent problems which they need help to solve. If the UK abandons foreign aid because ‘charity begins at home’, we are no better than someone refusing to help their newly homeless neighbour because of their own troubles with rising damp.
In the dictionary, the proverb “charity begins at home” is interpreted as:
one’s first responsibility is for the needs of one’s own family and friends.
This interpretation, I’m sure, is echoed by many people around the world. But if you take a closer look at this definition, you will notice how selfish it is. And for that very reason, it defeats the true purpose of charity. For Christians, Christian charity is emphasized in bible verses from the old to the new testament.

You see, charity is about compassion, empathy, and the will to make life better for others. Those should not be reserved only for the people you know. If anything, it should be given to those you don’t know.

Just think about this: if Nelson Mandela chose to serve the needs of his family first rather than his fellowmen, the apartheid would still probably be in effect. If Mother Teresa chose to help her friends and family first, many people around the world would still be suffering. Even the bible teaches us that we should love all people as though they are our brothers and sisters.
However, this is not to say that this proverb is wrong. I’m saying that our interpretation of it is slightly off course and it’s high time we correct it.