Must I Be Kind to My Money-Grubbing Parents?

A reader who inherited the family business feels conflicted about continuing to support its former owners.

I am the third-generation owner of a family business. The company is struggling now, and I can no longer afford to pay my parents who stopped working 11 years ago but still draw paychecks. Though the company has no legal obligation to pay them, my dad is threatening litigation. I made them an offer that will be burdensome for me to pay, but I’ll do it if it keeps the peace. My dilemma: When people come into the business and ask about my parents — or say: “What great people!” — how should I respond, considering they have put me in financial and emotional peril?

ANONYMOUS

Here’s what I know about family businesses: As a young man, my grandfather opened a tiny sporting goods shop and worked ferociously to make a go of it. Eventually, his sons joined him and helped grow the business. When he retired for health reasons, they kept paying him from the income of the business, as they should have. There would have been no income without my grandfather!