The Limits of Influence
How can I actually help someone?
Here are just a few of the shortcomings I was actively trying to steer my children away from: obesity, substance abuse, and education, or the lack of it. Neither my wife nor I made it past the age fourteen in school.
Part of me still wrestles with the nature vs. nurture question. Is who my kids become mostly hardwired, or do I really shape them? And if I can shape them, is it narcissistic to believe I have that kind of power?
I look back on my own upbringing, the endless dieting, the nutritionists, the well-meaning schemes my mother employed to ease the guilt I felt about my body. She was trying to convince me it wasn’t my fault. And maybe it wasn’t. I hang zero responsibility on my parents shoulders for my compulsions, my affliction. They were doing their best in a culture that gave them almost nothing useful to work with.
And yet... those early experiences did shape me.
By ten, I had figured out that I could lose weight fast if I just skipped meals and drank diet soda instead. Thanks, OptiFast. It wasn’t sustainable, and it wasn’t necessarily “healthy,” but it worked, and the message that “working” mattered more than how I felt was one I internalized deeply. Probably also the reason my mom pulled me off it just as I was seeing results.
I’m not powerful enough to override biology. But I do believe I can influence how my kids feel about their bodies, their hunger, their emotions, and the safety of being themselves around me. I can teach them, not by dictating rules, but by modeling a relationship to life that’s not built on shame.
Of course, there’s a fine line to walk. How much food? How much TV? How much pressure about homework? I wanted to set a semi-strict, yet affable tone as a parent, a house with boundaries, but also with laughter, with warmth. I wanted my kids to grow up and still want me in their lives.
So no juggling sharp knives at three, but if that’s what’s in your heart, let’s start by juggling something safer. And one day, when you’ve got your own health insurance, knock yourself out.
What I’ve come to believe, deeply, is that people don’t change until they decide to. Not when someone begs them to, or scares them into it, or builds a system of rewards and punishments around them. Change only sticks when it’s self-chosen.
That’s how it happened for me. That’s how I’ve seen it happen time and again.
A friend entered rehab last year but refused outpatient aftercare. When we talked, I got the idea that he saw it as unnecessary, maybe even embarrassing, maybe defeatist. What I sensed most was shame, untouchable shame. That hot ember in the mind that must be avoided at all costs. So I dropped it. He hadn’t experienced the gift of desperation yet, that strange, painful, and yes, wonderful gift. The truth is, it’s not one you can give to someone else.
He died of a drug overdose a couple of weeks ago.
The blame, shame, and regret I felt were profound. I ached to go back in time, to try harder, to somehow convince him to want the change I wanted for him. I kept thinking: If only I’d used stronger language. If I’d pleaded, begged, broken down. If I’d insisted.
My youngest daughter and I have a standing agreement about those words — I insist. It’s a rarely used but deeply respected pact. It’s gotten her room cleaned, and it’s landed me in a few painfully loud, youth-infested concerts. But the premise holds: when push comes to shove, one of us will submit, no questions asked.
Still, I’ve wrestled with when, or whether, to push. When to say “I insist.” And when to just let go.
I don’t think fear or control work long term. Maybe for something acute, in a crisis, a boundary, a genuine danger. But as a strategy for raising kids or sustaining relationships? I don’t want salivating Pavlovian dogs for children, or for friends.
There are limits to parenting, just like there are limits to friendship. What I want, what I see as ideal, what I believe would be best, those things won’t always be shared. And if I pretend otherwise, I’m not guiding. I’m dictating.
Dictatorial authoritarianism might snuff out the flames, but the embers will still smolder. The person has to come to their own reckoning.
My kids are all technically adults now. And looking back, the best I could’ve hoped to do was to set a good example. To raise them with the understanding that shame isn’t something to bury or hide, but something to talk about, that it’s not a private burden to be carried alone.
Role modeling doesn’t mean staying silent. I’ve learned that I also have to speak up when I sense those around me straying. Keeping my mouth shut serves no one, not me, not them, and not the relationship. What matters is that the people I love know I will always stand beside them, even if I have to say: I insist.