Claim. Filial piety is a habit of attention: when good things happen, the filial child thinks of the parent before the spouse, and acts on that order in concrete daily life.
Elaboration. “People of filial piety will think of their parents first when something good happens in their lives. In the fallen world people think of their spouse first when they see something good” (CSG 14.1 §1, 26-299, 1969.11.10). The order is operationalised: “unless you buy something precious for your parents first, you cannot buy something for your spouse… a man should first buy clothes for his parents, and then for his wife and children, before buying clothes for himself.” Filial piety is presented less as feeling than as a sequence of choices: who do I serve before I serve myself, before I serve even those closest to me horizontally? The Fall is read as the inversion of that order, where the spouse and self come before the parent.