gets to the root of who we  are and what motivates us:

What did I need to do in childhood to win  the support and approval of my parents?

We might - to sharpen the picture - need  to lean on a few subsidiary enquiries:

To please my father, I needed to… To please my mother, I needed to…

Not to upset my mother, I needed to… Not to upset my father, I needed to…

Whatever might be claimed, no family ever  gives its offspring unconditional love;  

there is always, more or less  subtly, something that one has  

to do and to be - and other things  that must at all costs be skirted.

When we look back, the commands may be  obvious: we needed to do very well at school,  

or be highly musical or never usurp our father  or little sister. In other cases, the commands  

will have been more disguised; we would have  imbibed a general sense - emitted we know not  

how - that making a lot of money was vital or that  sex was disgusting or that one’s value lay almost  

entirely in one’s looks or sporting ability. And sometimes, the commands would have been  

paradoxical to a degree we are still trying to  untangle: ‘you must be a winner, but if you are,  

we’ll be threatened’. Or: ‘try never to grow  up because adult women or men frighten me’. Or:  

‘become extremely attached to  me, so I can break your heart.’

However much our attitudes and outlooks might  be shaped by our countries of birth - by being  

Cambodian, French or Ghanian - we are  always first and foremost citizens of  

those micro republics we call families,  by being a Seang, a Béranger or a Boakye,  

each one of these lands equipped with  a hugely idiosyncratic set of laws,  

expectations, patriotisms and tyrannies. Our nations may lend us a certain accent  

and civil code, our birth families tell us what  constitutes a real man or woman, how much we can  

esteem ourselves, what we have to do to be admired  and how much calm and fulfilment we deserve.

If auditing these conditions of acceptance  matters, it is because - to a far greater  

extent than we realise - they may still be in  operation and make no sense at all. Decades after  

we left the republic of Niang, Smith, Kekoa or  Banerji, we may still be taking immense care not  

to succeed too much - lest we anger a disappointed  mother. we’re still permanently trying to appease  

the bad moods of men in authority - in  case they lose their temper violently,  

as a father did four decades before.  Or we continue to expect an attack,  

as we did when we were in the hands of a highly  damaged caregiver before our sixth birthday.

If we are still in the mood for questions,  we may need to wonder two things: 

1. How much am I still doing  of what I had to do back then? 

2. And how much do I like - or  dislike - the laws of yesteryear?

We may find - to our disquiet - that we are  continuing to apply to the present a set of  

edicts that long ago ceased to align with  any of our sincere aspirations. We continue  

to act the clown, or the meek little girl, the  terrified victim or daddy’s favourite even when  

the republic of home has long been disbanded,  its elite resigned and its borders obliterated. 

We may need to take stock of the  highly distinctive mini country  

we’ve come from - and, in certain cases,  before we waste yet more time, emigrate.