The Compassionate Instinct

Since I work in this area and think about this area, I try to be very explicit and never put anyone in the position where they feel they have to lie to me. If they think that I am going to be a strict disciplinarian, that will change the relationship as well. The major research I have done shows that the main reason people lie is to avoid being punished.

JASON MARSH: But it seems that a lot of parents feel caught in a catch-22. They may understand why it’s important to trust their kids, but they may not feel that their kid is worthy of that trust. What can parents do to help encourage the kind of truthfulness in their kids that makes them more comfortable trusting those kids?

PAUL: They can do things all the time—over the dining room table, with stories, when they’re playing Chutes and Ladders and kids get tempted to cheat in the game. I really think up to the age of 10 or 11, children are zealots for the truth—they really don’t want to mislead or be misled. So you can build on that.

You can do it by example. When Eve was born, I quit smoking after I had smoked for 30 years. And I also decided I was going to try to see if I could lead my life without lying to anyone about anything. It was much harder to do that—to figure out ways to be truthful without being harmful or insulting, to stay polite but be truthful. And it became a real challenge. But I also thought, “I’m going to try to do this because that’s the example I want to be showing. I want my kids to see that there’s a way to be truthful.” It was very deliberate.

Parents also need to establish the rules of disclosure and the obligations that come with their trust. For instance, we always made very clear to both of our kids that if they got into trouble in school, they were obliged to tell us. So if they didn’t tell us, then they were lying to us. That meant we had to define “trouble.” Trouble meant they were held after school or called to the principal’s office. That’s a rule of disclosure.

We need to spell out these rules and obligations in any relationship. In the business world, do you have to tell your employer if you’re looking for another job? Does your employer need to tell you if they’re thinking of cutting your position? What are the rules of disclosure? They’re never revealed. They’re kept ambiguous. That just makes for a lot of distrust and bad work relationships. Same in marriages. I have one colleague who told me, “My rule is that anything I do out of town is okay.” I said, “Does your spouse know that?” He never felt he needed to tell his spouse about it. There was no disclosure. It’s just the basis for misunderstanding and distrust.

JASON MARSH: Eve, do you think that growing up with those rules has affected your relationships with others?

EVE: It’s funny because as my dad was speaking, I was thinking about how I really do respect authority. Even though I think I’m a dissenter at heart, I definitely respect authority. You know, I’m afraid of getting caught, and that helps me not do things wrong. I was arrested once, but that was simply because I was protesting. Other than that, I’ve never broken the law. I’ve only gotten one ticket.

In general, I hope that when punishment is exacted, it’s fair and just, and I do think that was modeled to me from my family relationships. I think if there’s an inconsistent message, I could imagine feeling like, “Well, those laws don’t apply to me.”

And in my personal relationships with friends, as well as romantic relationships, I definitely think trust is core. I definitely know I’m someone people depend on. I’m a social worker, that’s my profession, but I also feel I’m the person who people call when things are really hard and they need someone they can trust. And I feel really respectful of that role, and I appreciate it.

I think you experience people’s family life through how they interact with you, and I feel like I’ve been the beneficiary of a great deal of trust, and I myself am trusting. But I’ve been burned. I remember talking with my dad about it at one point, like, “Why do I feel disappointed? I feel like I’m trusting, and I’m not sure that’s always met.” Like, in my early 20s, when I first started to have really meaningful and important relationships outside of family, I found there were some people for whom family wasn’t a model of trust and for whom learning trust was new. And so they would maybe play people off each other, do those kinds of things that ultimately will burn you.

JASON MARSH: So Paul, when you hear Eve talk about her ability to trust others and instill trust in others toward her, I wonder if you could step back and, putting on your psychologist’s hat, draw on some research to explain why that may be. How might the particular parenting style that you’ve practiced foster that trustworthiness over time? And perhaps even more importantly, what could be the negative consequences of not fostering that sense of trust and trustworthiness?