Stories about letting people make mistakes (not swoop in to prevent it)
February 11, 2025 5:13 AM Subscribe
My mom has been living separately from my dad who is domineering and harsh. As she's learning to do things for herself, she sometimes makes mistakes and then feels regret and anguish. I have an urge to swoop in and prevent the mistakes, so that I don't have to watch her lament. Can you share wisdom about letting her learn by making her own mistakes?
My mom and dad have been living separately for the past few years and are now on cordial terms. They are in their 70s / 80s and neither one wants a legal divorce. They speak briefly on the phone every 1-2 months to coordinate logistics. My mom has become calmer and more independent since being on her own.
Recently they needed to submit a form. My dad filled it out and told my mom to electronically sign it. My mom asked me to help her set up a computer to do the e-signature. I briefly explained the form contents to her and suggested that she carefully double-check it. I offered to go over it with her line by line and use online sources to verify it was filled out correctly.
My mom said it looked fine and that my dad had explained it to her. She went ahead and e-signed it without using her own sources to confirm.
It turns out my dad made numerous mistakes. Now they may end up losing thousands of dollars. They have enough money and this is not going to impact day-to-day life for either of them, but my mom is frugal and feels enormous regret over the money. She had no idea that she was risking this much money, and now she is stewing in remorse. She vows to be more careful with forms from now on and stop blindly listening to my dad.
Logically I know this is a valuable lesson for her to learn. If I insist on my viewpoint too much, I would be domineering like my dad, and it would undermine my mom's autonomy. Intellectually I'm aware of that. But emotionally I feel empathy seeing her kick herself about losing money, and it's led me to feel my own regret and blame myself about not insisting harder that she check the form. I keep going over whether there's different words I could've said to make her realize there were thousands of dollars on the line.
I keep thinking, "What if I'd gotten her to go through the form line-by-line? The errors would become obvious within a minute! When she saw the errors, she could've learned a lesson about not blindly trusting my dad, but without suffering all this pain of losing money! She could've had a close call and changed her behavior without this anguish!"
(Both my mom and I are aware that the source of the problems was my dad's mistakes. He's also aware of them and feels his own pain of losing money. However, the only thing we can control is our own behavior, so my mom and I are each focused on what we ourselves can do going forward.)
I already spoke to my therapist about my feelings, and am going to continue to work on this in therapy. My tendency extends to other people besides my mother, and I want to become more comfortable in general with letting others make their own mistakes. I already know what to do intellectually but I am struggling emotionally, and one way to get over my emotional block is by hearing other people's anecdotes.
1. If you've been in my place (wanting to swoop in to prevent another's mistakes), how did you learn to fight this urge?
2. Or if you've been in my mom's place (learning by trial and error), how did it feel to have someone who kept interfering to prevent you from mistakes? Did that person actually hold you back from growing independent?
Thank you for sharing your stories.
My mom and dad have been living separately for the past few years and are now on cordial terms. They are in their 70s / 80s and neither one wants a legal divorce. They speak briefly on the phone every 1-2 months to coordinate logistics. My mom has become calmer and more independent since being on her own.
Recently they needed to submit a form. My dad filled it out and told my mom to electronically sign it. My mom asked me to help her set up a computer to do the e-signature. I briefly explained the form contents to her and suggested that she carefully double-check it. I offered to go over it with her line by line and use online sources to verify it was filled out correctly.
My mom said it looked fine and that my dad had explained it to her. She went ahead and e-signed it without using her own sources to confirm.
It turns out my dad made numerous mistakes. Now they may end up losing thousands of dollars. They have enough money and this is not going to impact day-to-day life for either of them, but my mom is frugal and feels enormous regret over the money. She had no idea that she was risking this much money, and now she is stewing in remorse. She vows to be more careful with forms from now on and stop blindly listening to my dad.
Logically I know this is a valuable lesson for her to learn. If I insist on my viewpoint too much, I would be domineering like my dad, and it would undermine my mom's autonomy. Intellectually I'm aware of that. But emotionally I feel empathy seeing her kick herself about losing money, and it's led me to feel my own regret and blame myself about not insisting harder that she check the form. I keep going over whether there's different words I could've said to make her realize there were thousands of dollars on the line.
I keep thinking, "What if I'd gotten her to go through the form line-by-line? The errors would become obvious within a minute! When she saw the errors, she could've learned a lesson about not blindly trusting my dad, but without suffering all this pain of losing money! She could've had a close call and changed her behavior without this anguish!"
(Both my mom and I are aware that the source of the problems was my dad's mistakes. He's also aware of them and feels his own pain of losing money. However, the only thing we can control is our own behavior, so my mom and I are each focused on what we ourselves can do going forward.)
I already spoke to my therapist about my feelings, and am going to continue to work on this in therapy. My tendency extends to other people besides my mother, and I want to become more comfortable in general with letting others make their own mistakes. I already know what to do intellectually but I am struggling emotionally, and one way to get over my emotional block is by hearing other people's anecdotes.
1. If you've been in my place (wanting to swoop in to prevent another's mistakes), how did you learn to fight this urge?
2. Or if you've been in my mom's place (learning by trial and error), how did it feel to have someone who kept interfering to prevent you from mistakes? Did that person actually hold you back from growing independent?
Thank you for sharing your stories.
Best answer: 2. Or if you've been in my mom's place (learning by trial and error), how did it feel to have someone who kept interfering to prevent you from mistakes? Did that person actually hold you back from growing independent?
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. But for me one of the biggest things is learning how to not feel too much anguish at mistakes, berate myself endlessly for making them, and generally treat mistakes as the worst thing in the world. I think I got that tendency from growing up being berated overly dramatically for mistakes (which it sounds like your father might have done to your mother, and maybe she grew up that way too) and generally watching people treat mistakes as catastrophic moral failures.
So I think, whether you offer help or not, the most important thing is to be the voice that says "it's okay, mistakes are part of the human experience, the world is still turning, you're still standing, I still love you and think you're great, etc." And model that yourself when you make your own mistakes, so she can see it.
Help separate the mistakes from the anguish. And if you feel that her ego and self-esteem are not in the best shape after all those years with your dad, maybe see helping her develop her own self-esteem - and comfort with making mistakes - as a higher priority than avoiding mistakes in the first place.
(But also, thinking ahead - if you think that as she ages she's likely to be resistant to suggestions that might eventually become necessary, like "maybe we should make some adaptive changes in your home to prevent falls or make them less dangerous" or "maybe it's time for you to stop driving" or "it looks like it might be time to talk about live-in help or a nursing home" or "maybe it's time to give me power of attorney and let me take over some bureaucratic tasks" or "I think you should get your memory checked out by a doctor" - then tbh, it could be a good idea to think strategically about what kind of relationship between the two of you today might help her feel comfortable accepting that kind of pride-destroying, independence-limiting help when the time comes.)
posted by trig at 5:41 AM on February 11 [10 favorites]
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. But for me one of the biggest things is learning how to not feel too much anguish at mistakes, berate myself endlessly for making them, and generally treat mistakes as the worst thing in the world. I think I got that tendency from growing up being berated overly dramatically for mistakes (which it sounds like your father might have done to your mother, and maybe she grew up that way too) and generally watching people treat mistakes as catastrophic moral failures.
So I think, whether you offer help or not, the most important thing is to be the voice that says "it's okay, mistakes are part of the human experience, the world is still turning, you're still standing, I still love you and think you're great, etc." And model that yourself when you make your own mistakes, so she can see it.
Help separate the mistakes from the anguish. And if you feel that her ego and self-esteem are not in the best shape after all those years with your dad, maybe see helping her develop her own self-esteem - and comfort with making mistakes - as a higher priority than avoiding mistakes in the first place.
(But also, thinking ahead - if you think that as she ages she's likely to be resistant to suggestions that might eventually become necessary, like "maybe we should make some adaptive changes in your home to prevent falls or make them less dangerous" or "maybe it's time for you to stop driving" or "it looks like it might be time to talk about live-in help or a nursing home" or "maybe it's time to give me power of attorney and let me take over some bureaucratic tasks" or "I think you should get your memory checked out by a doctor" - then tbh, it could be a good idea to think strategically about what kind of relationship between the two of you today might help her feel comfortable accepting that kind of pride-destroying, independence-limiting help when the time comes.)
posted by trig at 5:41 AM on February 11 [10 favorites]
Best answer: This is “Dignity of risk” (link is an example, perhaps not perfect). I first heard it used in relation to a group home for adults with disabilities in Ottawa where some of the residents had survived very restrictive institutions and had never had the chance to try anything because their former carers wanted a quiet life.
posted by scruss at 5:46 AM on February 11 [17 favorites]
posted by scruss at 5:46 AM on February 11 [17 favorites]
What struck me first about your question was that your reaction in this instance is the same as your mom’s: regret, self-recrimination, and an extended “what-if” analysis. Sometimes the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree. ;)
With that said, I too am a rescuer who tries to smoothe the path for anyone I feel even the slightest bit responsible for. The mantra I use is “every time you rescue someone, you rob them of the chance to grow” and it has been very helpful for me.
posted by DrGail at 6:12 AM on February 11 [17 favorites]
With that said, I too am a rescuer who tries to smoothe the path for anyone I feel even the slightest bit responsible for. The mantra I use is “every time you rescue someone, you rob them of the chance to grow” and it has been very helpful for me.
posted by DrGail at 6:12 AM on February 11 [17 favorites]
1. If you've been in my place (wanting to swoop in to prevent another's mistakes), how did you learn to fight this urge?
By allowing my own mistakes to teach me that just because I can see exactly how somebody else is about to fuck something up, there's never any guarantee that doing it my way won't fuck it up even worse. Also by finally figuring out that the easiest way to avoid being the kind of arsehole who is always ready with an "I told you so" is never having told them so.
Also by finally getting used to people putting on the Shocked Pikachu face over lost or compromised passwords and irreparable data loss after years of ignoring my sage counsel on using password management software, making backups, doing the Safe Removal dance before yoinking their USB drives, and avoiding the vendor lock-in that's the entire point of bundled software.
Funny thing, advice. Everybody sucks at taking advice, and the better the advice the worse we suck at acting on it. This is why nobody likes a micromanager and why kids resent helicopter parenting.
So these days I limit my swoopings-in to cases where (a) my best judgement is that somebody I care for appears to be blithely unaware of being on the brink of death or life-changing injury or (b) my advice has been explicitly asked for.
Life is short, and trying to live everybody else's as well makes it shorter.
posted by flabdablet at 6:22 AM on February 11 [5 favorites]
By allowing my own mistakes to teach me that just because I can see exactly how somebody else is about to fuck something up, there's never any guarantee that doing it my way won't fuck it up even worse. Also by finally figuring out that the easiest way to avoid being the kind of arsehole who is always ready with an "I told you so" is never having told them so.
Also by finally getting used to people putting on the Shocked Pikachu face over lost or compromised passwords and irreparable data loss after years of ignoring my sage counsel on using password management software, making backups, doing the Safe Removal dance before yoinking their USB drives, and avoiding the vendor lock-in that's the entire point of bundled software.
Funny thing, advice. Everybody sucks at taking advice, and the better the advice the worse we suck at acting on it. This is why nobody likes a micromanager and why kids resent helicopter parenting.
So these days I limit my swoopings-in to cases where (a) my best judgement is that somebody I care for appears to be blithely unaware of being on the brink of death or life-changing injury or (b) my advice has been explicitly asked for.
Life is short, and trying to live everybody else's as well makes it shorter.
posted by flabdablet at 6:22 AM on February 11 [5 favorites]
People learn from mistakes. Mistakes are human. Your mom is learning pretty effectively here, and that's great. If she had listened to you, it probably wouldn't have stuck and maybe it would have been a worse situation financially.
My mantra is that reality is the best teacher. I don't have to try to take its job. Also yeah, 'stop being a control freak.'
Obviously there are mistakes we don't let people make (driving drunk comes to mind) but this wasn't that.
posted by warriorqueen at 6:29 AM on February 11 [2 favorites]
My mantra is that reality is the best teacher. I don't have to try to take its job. Also yeah, 'stop being a control freak.'
Obviously there are mistakes we don't let people make (driving drunk comes to mind) but this wasn't that.
posted by warriorqueen at 6:29 AM on February 11 [2 favorites]
Best answer: This is not exactly the same and I want to avoid sounding patronizing about an older person, since too often we treat older people like they are children again. I am sensitive to that.
As a parent, and someone with the urge to be everyone's fixer, I have a fairly detailed set of questions I think about to decide whether to prevent a bad outcome for my kid or to allow him to mess up, face the natural consequence and learn from that. No individual question usually dictates my final decision, it's a balance of my answers to these types of questions:
* Is this actually a learning opportunity? Is this a question or issue he's likely to face as he grows up and something he needs to learn from, or is it more of a flooky onetime thing?
* Is the risk/harm associated with the bad outcome worth it as a price for the lesson? A serious head injury is not a worthwhile lesson to teach a kid to always wear a bike helmet. What about being hungry at lunchtime if they forget their lunch at home? Does it matter whether they are in 1st grade or 5th grade?
* Is this the first time he's needed a rescue in this situation, or the 10th time? Everyone makes mistakes and being helpful when it's a rare one-off is just being kind and loving.
* How heavy is the burden on me to prevent the consequence, in terms of time, money, burnout, etc.?
So, by having some logical questions I can think about then I can effectively weigh whether I should help or not. If it's no big deal for a one time thing that's not a huge learning opportunity, I will probably fix it. If it's a consequence that is so big that it's not time yet for him to face it or its too dangerous, then I'll probably prevent it even if it is time consuming or tough for me.
This is good because (a) I restrain my tendency to overhelp and also because (b) I do not feel guilty when I choose NOT to help because I have a thought-out reason for it.
posted by fennario at 6:39 AM on February 11 [19 favorites]
As a parent, and someone with the urge to be everyone's fixer, I have a fairly detailed set of questions I think about to decide whether to prevent a bad outcome for my kid or to allow him to mess up, face the natural consequence and learn from that. No individual question usually dictates my final decision, it's a balance of my answers to these types of questions:
* Is this actually a learning opportunity? Is this a question or issue he's likely to face as he grows up and something he needs to learn from, or is it more of a flooky onetime thing?
* Is the risk/harm associated with the bad outcome worth it as a price for the lesson? A serious head injury is not a worthwhile lesson to teach a kid to always wear a bike helmet. What about being hungry at lunchtime if they forget their lunch at home? Does it matter whether they are in 1st grade or 5th grade?
* Is this the first time he's needed a rescue in this situation, or the 10th time? Everyone makes mistakes and being helpful when it's a rare one-off is just being kind and loving.
* How heavy is the burden on me to prevent the consequence, in terms of time, money, burnout, etc.?
So, by having some logical questions I can think about then I can effectively weigh whether I should help or not. If it's no big deal for a one time thing that's not a huge learning opportunity, I will probably fix it. If it's a consequence that is so big that it's not time yet for him to face it or its too dangerous, then I'll probably prevent it even if it is time consuming or tough for me.
This is good because (a) I restrain my tendency to overhelp and also because (b) I do not feel guilty when I choose NOT to help because I have a thought-out reason for it.
posted by fennario at 6:39 AM on February 11 [19 favorites]
Best answer: Some stories and food for thought here, describing the 'drama triangle' where 'rescuer' is over of the roles.
One option I didn't see you mention is to offer help (in a neutral way). Neither stepping in to help or letting someone try things themselves is bad of itself, but giving them a choice is usually good.
posted by demi-octopus at 6:41 AM on February 11 [2 favorites]
One option I didn't see you mention is to offer help (in a neutral way). Neither stepping in to help or letting someone try things themselves is bad of itself, but giving them a choice is usually good.
posted by demi-octopus at 6:41 AM on February 11 [2 favorites]
Also yeah, 'stop being a control freak.'
My take on that one is that control stops at the skin, and most days it's quite hard enough to make it reach even that far.
A drive to control other people makes a very poor substitute for self-awareness.
posted by flabdablet at 6:41 AM on February 11 [1 favorite]
My take on that one is that control stops at the skin, and most days it's quite hard enough to make it reach even that far.
A drive to control other people makes a very poor substitute for self-awareness.
posted by flabdablet at 6:41 AM on February 11 [1 favorite]
I watched one my of nieces grow up with parents who were so emotionally intertwined with her that she couldn't be let to have a moment of anxiety or trouble. If the daughter stubbed her toe, the whole family hopped around on one foot screaming in pain. So she was isolated from hurt in every way possible. It was painful to watch.
As a result my niece (who I dearly love) has never thrived on her own. She simply does not have the self-knowledge and experience to manage her own anxiety. Her parents managed their own anxiety at her cost.
People learn about themselves from experience, and if you deny them the experience then you're just keeping them in ignorance. It doesn't end well.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 6:45 AM on February 11 [10 favorites]
As a result my niece (who I dearly love) has never thrived on her own. She simply does not have the self-knowledge and experience to manage her own anxiety. Her parents managed their own anxiety at her cost.
People learn about themselves from experience, and if you deny them the experience then you're just keeping them in ignorance. It doesn't end well.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 6:45 AM on February 11 [10 favorites]
Best answer: there's never any guarantee that doing it my way won't fuck it up even worse.
That's a good point. It's possible that part of the reason your mother didn't want to look into things too much - whether consciously or unconsciously - is that she has a complicated relationship with your father, and if she had found mistakes in your father's work then it might have put her in a difficult situation and had some adverse effects on the relationship (especially if he didn't want to acknowledge his mistakes). This way they lost money, but maybe she learned to trust him a bit less blindly, he learned to trust himself a bit less, he didn't get angry at her or feel threatened because of her rejecting him as an authority, neither of them felt angry at or threatened by you...
posted by trig at 6:45 AM on February 11 [4 favorites]
That's a good point. It's possible that part of the reason your mother didn't want to look into things too much - whether consciously or unconsciously - is that she has a complicated relationship with your father, and if she had found mistakes in your father's work then it might have put her in a difficult situation and had some adverse effects on the relationship (especially if he didn't want to acknowledge his mistakes). This way they lost money, but maybe she learned to trust him a bit less blindly, he learned to trust himself a bit less, he didn't get angry at her or feel threatened because of her rejecting him as an authority, neither of them felt angry at or threatened by you...
posted by trig at 6:45 AM on February 11 [4 favorites]
Her parents managed their own anxiety at her cost.
To be fair, that's totally the 21st century way.
posted by flabdablet at 6:49 AM on February 11 [1 favorite]
To be fair, that's totally the 21st century way.
posted by flabdablet at 6:49 AM on February 11 [1 favorite]
Oh, one thing your mother may learn is to make mistakes and have that be okay. From your post I think you might want to get in on that...
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 6:49 AM on February 11
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 6:49 AM on February 11
Best answer: Another useful technique is noticing a regret, paying attention to the way it formulates itself in my head, and then explicitly re-casting it as a policy statement if it isn't one already.
"I wish I hadn't done that" is a much less useful way to perseverate on a regret than "should similar circumstances arise again, I will handle them differently".
posted by flabdablet at 6:55 AM on February 11 [5 favorites]
"I wish I hadn't done that" is a much less useful way to perseverate on a regret than "should similar circumstances arise again, I will handle them differently".
posted by flabdablet at 6:55 AM on February 11 [5 favorites]
Best answer: The fact that your dad was domineering is definitely in play here. Your mom just learned an expensive lesson about how ready she is, even subconsciously, to continue to defer to him. I’m sure it was a survival skill for her back when they were together, and now she is learning that she still has that habit. If you had insisted on giving her advice she may have transferred that habit of deference to you.
posted by Vatnesine at 7:09 AM on February 11 [8 favorites]
posted by Vatnesine at 7:09 AM on February 11 [8 favorites]
You could look into Buddhist/mindful/psychological work on acceptance, which is ultimately what this is about - accepting that the world is imperfect, that people we love will experience pain and distress, and that we don't always have the power to stop that.
It's not something I'm great at with my own mother, and I sympathise! scruss, thanks for that link on The Dignity of Risk, it's really useful as a resource, and as a concept.
posted by penguin pie at 7:53 AM on February 11 [3 favorites]
It's not something I'm great at with my own mother, and I sympathise! scruss, thanks for that link on The Dignity of Risk, it's really useful as a resource, and as a concept.
posted by penguin pie at 7:53 AM on February 11 [3 favorites]
I grew up with a mother who had strong views of how things should be done, mainly her way. There wasn't a lot of trial and error. She passed away in my early teens and my father was much more easy going. So it has been trial and error for me since then.
As a result, my baseline in work and in my personal life is - is anybody going to die? Is anybody going to get badly hurt (not just physically but any truly significant consequence) in a way they can't be expected to recover from in the medium term?
If the answer to both of these questions is 'no' then whatever will be will be and we deal with the consequences as they arise. You get to that point by working through adverse consequences and realising that you can work through them and that for the most part, things work out ok. Doesn't mean you won't ever sit there and kick yourself or feel a bit foolish because you could have anticipated or done things differently. But that feeling passes.
So if your mother was about to sign something that could result in her losing her home and/or retirement income - you interfere, explain the potential consequences and help her etc. Financial destitution is not something a person in her 70s could recover from. A young person would have time to rebuild their finances so the answer may be different for them.
posted by koahiatamadl at 7:53 AM on February 11 [5 favorites]
As a result, my baseline in work and in my personal life is - is anybody going to die? Is anybody going to get badly hurt (not just physically but any truly significant consequence) in a way they can't be expected to recover from in the medium term?
If the answer to both of these questions is 'no' then whatever will be will be and we deal with the consequences as they arise. You get to that point by working through adverse consequences and realising that you can work through them and that for the most part, things work out ok. Doesn't mean you won't ever sit there and kick yourself or feel a bit foolish because you could have anticipated or done things differently. But that feeling passes.
So if your mother was about to sign something that could result in her losing her home and/or retirement income - you interfere, explain the potential consequences and help her etc. Financial destitution is not something a person in her 70s could recover from. A young person would have time to rebuild their finances so the answer may be different for them.
posted by koahiatamadl at 7:53 AM on February 11 [5 favorites]
I am wondering why you and your mother are so sure that you would have caught the mistakes. Maybe? Probably? But not definitely. People make mistakes. All the time.
What is the lesson your mother learned? I always felt with my kids, that if they learned a valuable lesson, it was worth the price. High price v high value. A great lesson is one where there is recognition of the mistake, remorse about it, but while the cost may be high, it ultimately will have no affect on their lives.
If there is no permanent harm or no material harm, I let the lesson be learned. Also, if you can correct the error after the fact, then why not let the mistake happen? What you (the generic you) want to avoid is becoming a helicopter parent to your parents. Until it is known that they have deteriorated to a point where they need the oversight, it is not your job to save them from themselves.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 8:34 AM on February 11
What is the lesson your mother learned? I always felt with my kids, that if they learned a valuable lesson, it was worth the price. High price v high value. A great lesson is one where there is recognition of the mistake, remorse about it, but while the cost may be high, it ultimately will have no affect on their lives.
If there is no permanent harm or no material harm, I let the lesson be learned. Also, if you can correct the error after the fact, then why not let the mistake happen? What you (the generic you) want to avoid is becoming a helicopter parent to your parents. Until it is known that they have deteriorated to a point where they need the oversight, it is not your job to save them from themselves.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 8:34 AM on February 11
I might have lost the thread here, but did you feel compelled to swoop in and solve problems at the time, or are you, like I often do, kicking yourself retroactively, wishing you had? I went through the latter a lot when my mom started her decline into dementia. I wish I had done X so this wouldn't have happened. I wish I had done Y... In my case, there was very little that would have even tipped me off that something needed to be done, but it's so much easier to kick myself than watch my parents be harmed. Being able to name this has really helped me stop stewing about it. I do the things I know I can do to help, and for the rest, I know that I'll do what I can to fix things if they want me to.
posted by advicepig at 9:04 AM on February 11 [2 favorites]
posted by advicepig at 9:04 AM on February 11 [2 favorites]
Best answer: "Reasonable people can disagree" is essentially my guiding principle. A reasonable person could choose to examine a form line-by-line, and a reasonable person could fear the known consequences of offending someone else by doing so more than they fear the risk of errors. Even if in hindsight the errors sting, it doesn't mean that in the moment they were making a mistake per se. Probably the person would be happier long-term if they figure out how to rectify the situation as a whole, but that's a very different take-away than "oh no oh no I should have done it better." Here I wonder if that's a big component of this for both of you, that you know that the problem is actually with your dad's demeanor, and you have a ton of feelings around not being able to fix that but nothing to do with those feelings besides turn them on yourselves.
"Next time I'll make sure I understand the degree of risk" ("Next time I'll explicitly ask if she is okay losing up to $X") might actually be the best possible lesson, depending on what everyone's actually willing to do. Even if you'd gotten your way, it might not have actually taught her not to blindly trust, because what if he just swore that next time he'd get it all correct, and she again felt pressure to go along with that, since when you had done it line-by-line, he stopped being so cordial about anything else? We can't know the counterfactual here. But even your telling of the story doesn't have her doing anything truly unreasonable, and you know you don't actually want to live her life for her, you want her to live her life. That absolutely requires letting her make her own choices based on her own values. Here she's probably discovered she doesn't value harmony quite this highly, but I'm guessing that even a very frugal person does actually have some number of dollars they'd be willing to "spend" on not antagonizing someone who's so harsh and domineering.
Trying to figure out what factors actually make other people's decisions make sense to them gives me a lot of comfort when on the surface of the issue their actions seem wholly misguided to me. Often it's simply that our values and goals are very different from one another, which actually can be delightful to understand, and/or there are significant factors I'm unaware of and/or not accounting for correctly. And if nothing else, the puzzle of coming up with a different story than "they're making a huge mistake!" distracts me from trying to grab control by meddling. It's crucial to make sure that trying to correct the mistake is not itself a mistake, after all.
Since you asked for stories: I chose not to travel to visit my father, who'd been sick for some time, at the very end of his life. I had a brand new preemie baby and all the baby's doctors had subtly cringed at the idea before carefully telling me that of course I should do what I needed to do, and so I decided to stay home. A close friend was flabbergasted by my decision. She knew about the baby, she knew about the doctors, but it never once occurred to her that I wouldn't go. She had even come up with a great plan that kept the baby as safe as possible without separating us for more than the time I'd have been with my dad, which I truly did appreciate, but what I had realized was that I didn't actually need to go, or even really want to. I was okay; I didn't feel compelled to see him a final time. I chose what was best for me. And, once she realized that I was serious, my friend gave me no trouble at all about that decision, and we did what I wanted and it was as good and right as it could be, not a mistake at all. I don't doubt that my friend would have done the opposite in my place, and that that would have been right for her, but she was also right to let me choose my own path even though it risked significant regrets.
posted by teremala at 11:14 AM on February 11 [6 favorites]
"Next time I'll make sure I understand the degree of risk" ("Next time I'll explicitly ask if she is okay losing up to $X") might actually be the best possible lesson, depending on what everyone's actually willing to do. Even if you'd gotten your way, it might not have actually taught her not to blindly trust, because what if he just swore that next time he'd get it all correct, and she again felt pressure to go along with that, since when you had done it line-by-line, he stopped being so cordial about anything else? We can't know the counterfactual here. But even your telling of the story doesn't have her doing anything truly unreasonable, and you know you don't actually want to live her life for her, you want her to live her life. That absolutely requires letting her make her own choices based on her own values. Here she's probably discovered she doesn't value harmony quite this highly, but I'm guessing that even a very frugal person does actually have some number of dollars they'd be willing to "spend" on not antagonizing someone who's so harsh and domineering.
Trying to figure out what factors actually make other people's decisions make sense to them gives me a lot of comfort when on the surface of the issue their actions seem wholly misguided to me. Often it's simply that our values and goals are very different from one another, which actually can be delightful to understand, and/or there are significant factors I'm unaware of and/or not accounting for correctly. And if nothing else, the puzzle of coming up with a different story than "they're making a huge mistake!" distracts me from trying to grab control by meddling. It's crucial to make sure that trying to correct the mistake is not itself a mistake, after all.
Since you asked for stories: I chose not to travel to visit my father, who'd been sick for some time, at the very end of his life. I had a brand new preemie baby and all the baby's doctors had subtly cringed at the idea before carefully telling me that of course I should do what I needed to do, and so I decided to stay home. A close friend was flabbergasted by my decision. She knew about the baby, she knew about the doctors, but it never once occurred to her that I wouldn't go. She had even come up with a great plan that kept the baby as safe as possible without separating us for more than the time I'd have been with my dad, which I truly did appreciate, but what I had realized was that I didn't actually need to go, or even really want to. I was okay; I didn't feel compelled to see him a final time. I chose what was best for me. And, once she realized that I was serious, my friend gave me no trouble at all about that decision, and we did what I wanted and it was as good and right as it could be, not a mistake at all. I don't doubt that my friend would have done the opposite in my place, and that that would have been right for her, but she was also right to let me choose my own path even though it risked significant regrets.
posted by teremala at 11:14 AM on February 11 [6 favorites]
Best answer: 1. If you've been in my place (wanting to swoop in to prevent another's mistakes), how did you learn to fight this urge?
I know this isn't what you asked, but IMO that "people learn from mistakes" is more a truism than actual reality. The reasons why people fail or succeed are each innumerable, and in the abstract and aggregate success or failure may lead to more success, but at an individual level? It's myriad, and one can succeed endlessly without significant failure or continue failing endlessly without success.
You can see this in activities where the mistakes aren't caught and things just get worse: lifting weights and all exercise (basically) and financial activities.
IMO: don't focus on letting someone make mistakes and correct them on their own, focus on teaching form, and on easier tasks they can handle correctly until they work up to more complex ones. if they enjoy (or can tolerate it) they will work up on their own. This is how school works. We don't say oh well, kindergartners can't do algebra - cuz they dumb, and then endlessly let them fail until they get it. we start small, working on form and understanding concepts on the way up.
posted by The_Vegetables at 2:22 PM on February 11 [2 favorites]
I know this isn't what you asked, but IMO that "people learn from mistakes" is more a truism than actual reality. The reasons why people fail or succeed are each innumerable, and in the abstract and aggregate success or failure may lead to more success, but at an individual level? It's myriad, and one can succeed endlessly without significant failure or continue failing endlessly without success.
You can see this in activities where the mistakes aren't caught and things just get worse: lifting weights and all exercise (basically) and financial activities.
IMO: don't focus on letting someone make mistakes and correct them on their own, focus on teaching form, and on easier tasks they can handle correctly until they work up to more complex ones. if they enjoy (or can tolerate it) they will work up on their own. This is how school works. We don't say oh well, kindergartners can't do algebra - cuz they dumb, and then endlessly let them fail until they get it. we start small, working on form and understanding concepts on the way up.
posted by The_Vegetables at 2:22 PM on February 11 [2 favorites]
I had to learn from my kids:
- the goal of life isn’t to always avoid bad feelings at all times
- you are emotionally resilient enough to handle bad feelings
- you get to live a life that is yours
So losing this money utterly sucks; but it’s done now.
Role model positive agency: how can we get ahead of this and limit damage, let’s be creative and resourceful.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 3:24 PM on February 11 [6 favorites]
- the goal of life isn’t to always avoid bad feelings at all times
- you are emotionally resilient enough to handle bad feelings
- you get to live a life that is yours
So losing this money utterly sucks; but it’s done now.
Role model positive agency: how can we get ahead of this and limit damage, let’s be creative and resourceful.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 3:24 PM on February 11 [6 favorites]
Best answer: Also watching my son - the “sting” of forgetting his home work and having to face the teacher made him hustle the next day to check his backpack before leaving for school. All my nagging him in the world would not have taught him that lesson so quickly, and so effectively.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 3:41 PM on February 11 [3 favorites]
posted by St. Peepsburg at 3:41 PM on February 11 [3 favorites]
It's your anxiety making you want to swoop in, so deal with it the way you deal with other times when your anxiety surrounding your mother tempts you to be over controlling. Supposing you were tempted to try to choose the vehicle your mother would use, or how she should celebrate Christmas, or whether she ought to wear boots or shoes on a day when it is raining? How would you make yourself bite your tongue and back off? What would your self talk sound like?
Also consider that the document was a deliberate trap that your father fell into. It could have been simplified to ensure he didn't make the mistake he did. Whoever issued the form did so knowing that a certain percentage of the people filling it out would screw it up, and they not only didn't care, but someone somewhere down the line is profiting from it being overly complicated.
Your mother, AND you fell into that same trap your father did. None of you realised that the document was important enough that it needed an expert or at least a very close eye and some discussion. If your father had realised he would have gotten someone like an accountant or a tax professional to look at it for him. If your mother had realised, she would have looked at it closely and gotten someone to help. And if you had realised, you would have intervened and called your dad and insisted your mother let you wave it under the nose of some professional. None of you did.
It's very possible that your regret now is a way of trying to make yourself believe that you didn't make a mistake, and that it was really your parents' fault, and that you can prevent such things from happening in future by looking at extremely complex and confusing critical documents for them. It's a scary world when unscrupulous people are finding ways of skimming large amounts of money off other people. Maybe your anxious impulse to try to gain control of the situation, isn't so much about your relationship with your parents and how they feel, but is a displacement for being angry and appalled that whoever issued the document turned them into victims.
posted by Jane the Brown at 5:08 PM on February 11 [2 favorites]
Also consider that the document was a deliberate trap that your father fell into. It could have been simplified to ensure he didn't make the mistake he did. Whoever issued the form did so knowing that a certain percentage of the people filling it out would screw it up, and they not only didn't care, but someone somewhere down the line is profiting from it being overly complicated.
Your mother, AND you fell into that same trap your father did. None of you realised that the document was important enough that it needed an expert or at least a very close eye and some discussion. If your father had realised he would have gotten someone like an accountant or a tax professional to look at it for him. If your mother had realised, she would have looked at it closely and gotten someone to help. And if you had realised, you would have intervened and called your dad and insisted your mother let you wave it under the nose of some professional. None of you did.
It's very possible that your regret now is a way of trying to make yourself believe that you didn't make a mistake, and that it was really your parents' fault, and that you can prevent such things from happening in future by looking at extremely complex and confusing critical documents for them. It's a scary world when unscrupulous people are finding ways of skimming large amounts of money off other people. Maybe your anxious impulse to try to gain control of the situation, isn't so much about your relationship with your parents and how they feel, but is a displacement for being angry and appalled that whoever issued the document turned them into victims.
posted by Jane the Brown at 5:08 PM on February 11 [2 favorites]
Best answer: I used to work at a sexual assault and abuse crisis center. The biggest thing we learned about working with people who had been abused, is that they were feeling like they were immensely stupid and incapable, because the abuser creates that dynamic to justify the abuse. ("If you weren't so useless, I wouldn't have to do everything," etc.) Someone stepping in to "save" them, even if the savior had great intentions, just further reinforced the idea that the abuse victim was stupid and incapable and needed help. The goal, instead, was to remind them that they're capable, they're smart, and even when they fail at some things, they have the strength and intelligence to repair it.
Confidence doesn't come from having everything go perfectly. It comes from failing and then figuring out how to come back from that, and developing the muscle-/emotional-memory that you can survive setbacks.
posted by lapis at 7:09 PM on February 11 [7 favorites]
Confidence doesn't come from having everything go perfectly. It comes from failing and then figuring out how to come back from that, and developing the muscle-/emotional-memory that you can survive setbacks.
posted by lapis at 7:09 PM on February 11 [7 favorites]
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posted by raccoon409 at 5:25 AM on February 11 [10 favorites]