I'm glad your family supported your uncle! It sounds as if he was something of a son to your parents. Would have been good if he didn't let you jump out of a tree though! (Actually I'm hazy on the details of this story?)

--I should say that of course even if the era pushes that obligation on people less in popular culture, there are still many substrates of society, plus individual families, that still feel the obligation (and no doubt there were families in the past who bucked expectations).