The Compassionate Instinct

PAUL EKMAN: Nope. When I suspected that you had done something wrong, I went to some length to avoid putting you in a position where you would have to lie. Instead, when I was worried about you, I would ask leading questions like, “Is there something on your mind? Is there something you want to talk about?”

In that way, you had the opportunity to disclose on your own. I did not want to ask you every day if you had gotten into trouble, but there was a rule of disclosure. There were very few things I expected, but if you did not tell me, it was a lie.

I remember once, when I had heard you come in after curfew, I asked you, “What happened the other night? I heard you come in late.” So I was already telling you, “I know you did that,” without trying to catch you in a lie.

The issue clearly arises in every generation. I lied to my parents all the time. They were very restrictive, invading my privacy continuously. The challenge of my adolescence was learning how to outwit them, which I did. I had an entirely secret life.

EVE: So you are saying it is the nature of the relationship with the child that determines the role of trust and lying?

PAUL: Yes, certainly so. The role of the parent is an extremely difficult one because you have to keep moving backward. When parents start out, they are completely responsible for their child, who is totally helpless. As that child grows, you have to roll back, you have to grant control; otherwise, your child can’t grow. You have to be able to live with the fact that as you grant the child more autonomy, they will get into all sorts of trouble. But you ultimately have to leave it up to them.

JASON MARSH: It seems like this could be difficult advice to follow, to trust that much. What was it from your research, or personal experience, that motivated you to take this approach?

PAUL: It wasn’t based on research, mine or anyone else’s. It was based on my own experience with parents who did just the opposite. They did everything they could to try to interfere with my life, and they were the last people I would have ever turned to when I was a child. I wanted to be the first people my kids would turn to.

It took some restraint, because worry was my middle name, way before I ever had a child. But I think, for children, the most important thing is to feel they can trust that their parents, whether they approve or disapprove, will always be available for help and support. If that’s not the case, then I think you’ve really failed as a parent.

JASON MARSH: Eve, what kind of effect do you think this kind of parenting style had on your behavior growing up, and on your feelings of trust toward your parents?

EVE: I was not your conventional good girl. But I definitely did not want to disappoint the trust they gave me, because I thought they were cool, and I liked them. They weren’t just authority figures; they were very open and available and accessible. And if I challenged what they did, they would explain it to me. It wasn’t like, “Because I said so.” There was always an explanation of why, and I guess that helped build trust. I always felt like, even in the worst-case scenarios, they would be the first person I would call. Still, to this day, I call them first when I have trouble.

PAUL: I remember the call from jail.

EVE: That was when I was arrested for protesting the war in Iraq.

JASON MARSH: Paul, do you think that by being so trusting, you not only earned the trust of your kids but also actually helped make them more trustworthy?

PAUL: Yes. I didn’t want them to get started on my path of lying to my parents. Because I do believe that it’s a slippery slope: you start lying once, you lie another time, you lie about more things, and you’ve crossed the threshold. And I didn’t want to put them in a position where they would cross that threshold.

EVE: What kinds of difficulties do parents encounter even when they want to put this kind of trust in their kids?

PAUL: A major difficulty is that so much changes from generation to generation. What was normative in one generation can shift greatly—changing sexual morality, recreational drugs. Parents have a hard time trusting that their kids are prepared to deal with these things that are so new to the parents.

Beyond that, there is the difficulty of giving up control. Many parents are control freaks, and that is in part because they do not want to worry. And in ways they are right to worry—adolescents take risks that are very dangerous.

EVE: But it starts before adolescence, right?

PAUL: It stars at 3 to 5 years of age, and it gets really strong in adolescence.

The Dalai Lama asked me once, “What is destructive compassion?” And I said that destructive compassion is when you are so worried about your child that you overcontrol them.