Let’s not tough love
Tough love is a prime example of the philosophy ‘the ends justify the means’. As Michael Scott says in the hit TV show, The Office, “Tough love is when you have to be mean to somebody because you love them. And the more you love a person, the meaner you have to get.”
The first time we encounter tough love in our lives is probably when we are kids.
Consider Andy, a 12-year-old. She makes some spelling errors in her English test and ends up scoring low marks. Her dad tells her ‘Andy, for each wrongly spelt word, you have to write out the correct spelling 50 times. Only then can you eat your dinner.’ Andy struggles with hunger pangs as she completes the task given to her. In the next exam, she no longer repeats these mistakes. Both Andy and her dad come away from this with the lesson that tough love is a tactic that gets the results. But in reality, before every future test, Andy develops a fear of making mistakes and the consequences that she may face at home. She starts believing that only a good performance on the test makes her deserving of a dinner. Whenever she scores low marks, she loses her appetite. She equates her grades to her self-worth. This can be very dangerous in the long run [1, 2].
Tough love can creep into other relationships such as marriages as well.
Victims of tough love can feel it is an effective tactic and use it on others themselves. Wendy’s husband David stays at the office till late every day and it takes a toll on his health. Wendy tells him, in order to ‘help’ him, ‘ You need to come home by 7 pm every day. Otherwise, you will have to make your own dinner. ’ David starts coming home by 7 pm. But Wendy doesn’t realize that this ultimatum only amplifies David’s stress levels. He needs to rush through his appointed task, and as a result, he is only able to do a haphazard job. Furthermore, he loses his quality of sleep because of worrying about the low-quality work he’s done [3].
Tough love is a commonly found tactic in the workplace as well.
David works in sales and his boss tells him ‘ If you don’t reach this sales target I’ve set for you for this month, I will fire you.’ David reaches the target. But in the course of it, he does his job in a stressful mindset, at the edge of a cliff. He is only able to do the bare minimum and moreover, he forsakes his mental health and physical health to do this [4].
Tough love may seem to get the job done. But it stops us from seeing the whole picture.
Instead of resorting to tough love, it is healthier in the long run to be empathetic.
Andy’s dad could have said, ‘Let me sit down with you after dinner and we can figure out how to help you get better at spelling.’ Such an approach provides the space to understand why such spelling mistakes were made. It teaches the child that making mistakes is okay as long as you try to understand why you’ve made it and how to tackle such a situation in the future. The child also feels comfortable owning up to the mistakes she’s made and doesn’t hide them out of fear of consequences.
Wendy could’ve said ‘ While I accept that work is important, your health and well-being are more so. What do you think you can do to have a healthier work-life balance?’ David is then able to openly discuss with his wife the difficulties he is facing at work and she can then offer suggestions on how to change the status quo. This allows David to have some agency in the decision.
David’s boss could have said, ‘ I would like to aim for X target for this month’s sales. What do you think are the chances of achieving it? What are the difficulties you would face, both professional and personal, if I set such a target? Is there anything I can do to make things easier?’ Hearing something like this would allow David to feel like a part of the company and not merely a cog in the machinery. Working in a relaxed manner, he would be able to explore his full potential, achieving job satisfaction.
Another important, yet often overlooked use of tough love is when you do it to yourself.
Students may deprive themselves of hobbies or a social life as a ‘punishment’ for bad grades. This leads to a mistaken idea that only good scorers deserve to have hobbies or a social life. Adults may force themselves to work late and neglect their family life. This not only hurts their life, it also hurts their loved ones.
The difficulty with tough love is that it is embedded so deeply in our lives that we even have a hard time recognizing it for what it is.
The perpetrators are in most cases the very people supposed to protect us and nurture us. The victims are led to believe that guilt and gratitude are the right response. It is often trivialized or even worse, glorified; and no serious research has been done on its effects. In an era where children and adults alike are facing extreme competitiveness and resulting pressure, tough love is not a sustainable tactic.
Did you experience tough love as a child? Wondering how to reparent your inner child to heal the weight of any unresolved wounds? Read this article.
References:
[1] The Pressure to Excel — The East Asian Experience With Academic Validation - echoX
[2] Youth suicide: Asian teens crack under growing family pressure - Nikkei Asia
[3] 7 Reasons Why The Concept Of Tough Love Does More Harm Than Good
[4] Bosses: Your ‘tough love’ approach can backfire - MarketWatch