Who's Responsible?

I read Steve Duin’s recent column in the Oregonian. As a parent, I was incensed at he mercenary behavior of the cab driver.

It got me to thinking about responsibility.
To whom and for whom am I responsible?

Since I am the only person over whom I really have any control, does that mean that I am only responsible for myself?
If I always try to do my best, (meaning the best that I am capable of doing in any given moment, not the best that has ever been done in the history of the entire world) is that enough?
What if my best conflicts with someone else’s best?

What about my children?
Where does my responsibility to my children end?
If I make sure that they are fed and clothed, have I fulfilled my parental responsibilities? Do I have to love them too? AND, I do love my children! I love my children with every breath in my body and every ounce of my being. But I have read enough memoirs and heard enough stories about mothers who are found to be at fault for not loving their children the right way. Am I responsible for every neurosis and socially unacceptable tick that my children may develop as a result of the way in which I have loved them?
Is that fair?

And what is my responsibility to the world at large?
Am I my brother’s keeper?
If I pick up a hitchhiker or befriend a homeless person, am I being socially responsible or reckless?
Caring for and about others is an important aspect of being a responsible member of a community. But what if that hitchhiker is a mass murderer or that homeless person a thief? Haven’t I just then been the poster child of irresponsibility by choosing to help a stranger and putting myself and, by extension, my children in harm’s way?
Am I being more responsible by showing my children that we are each part of something greater or am I being irresponsible by not loving them enough to put them and their safety first? Am I setting up my children for a lifetime of therapy or am I preparing them to become fully functioning members of society?

The questions keep coming and my brain is hurting.
I realize that that this is not really what Steve Duin was talking about and that there are much greater problems and more important questions to be answered than the inconsequential wondering of a mind with too much time, but…there it is anyway.