How Often Do You Say No?

Daily Dad July 23

The theme that Ryan Holiday built July’s Daily Dad Meditations around is called: Help Them Become Who They Are. It’s about nurturing and promoting self-discovery. A sub-theme that runs through yesterday’s and today’s meditations has to do with confronting the control a parent has over a child. Another way of looking at that control is by looking at the amount of actual effect your can have over the long-term life of your child.

Here, it is distilled down to: Does it matter if you say no? Won’t they be who they are going to be regardless? You see this from time to time in media, where a distant dad figure pops into their child’s life. They something along the lines of “see, you became this awesome person you are because of my poor parenting.“ In Johnny Cash’s Boy Named Sue, the distant father character says:

Son, this world is rough
And if a man's gonna make it, he's gotta be tough
I knew I wouldn't be there to help you along
So I give you that name, and I said goodbye
And I knew you'd have to get tough or die
It's that name that helped to make you strong

But the response is:

Well, if I ever have a boy, I'll name him
Frank or George or Bill or Tom, anything but Sue
I don't want him go around, man call him Sue all his life
That's a horrible thing to do to a boy trying to get a hold in the world
Named a boy a Sue

In both cases, it’s a parent giving the ultimate no- no to giving myself to you. The parent who says no too often and the parent who says no always by not being present both similarly affect the child. Both are not helping the child, both are getting in the way.