Discussion Question
This has been bothering me lately, and bwilder asked a question on his LJ that made me think of this, so...
How do you know where that line is between helping and enabling? That "teach a man to fish" expression is a good marker, of course...The helping/enabling line can create tension in everything from quotidian life to international politics.
posted by kStyle @ 1:27 PM
6 Comments:
That's a good point, a good demarcation. Thanks!
Doesn't "enabling" mean helping someone who is screwing up by covering for him/her, making excuses, deflecting accountability, etc., thus allowing the person to continue screwing up because (s)he doesn't have to face the consequences of his/her actions?
Can I just not do this "him/her" thing, please? It's the guys that are the screwups anyway, we all know that, and the women who enable them. Or don't.
In any case, if this is what you mean by enabling, there's probably a list of sociopathic behaviors in a book that you can refer to, and it's probably pretty short. Off the top of my head I can only think of substance abuse. If you call your husband's boss just once to say he's sick when he's really on a bender, that's enabling.
That's not exactly what I meant. Perhaps I chose the wrong word. (And I don't think it's a gender thing, either.)
It's like, where's that line where you stop thinking, "Hey, this person needs help," and trying to help, and when you say, "Hey, this person is a complainer," or "S/he makes all his/her own problems and is just bringing me into the drama"? I think I have a pretty good sense of boundaries about these things, but it's interesting. I might err a little too far on the side of "whiny complainer shush," because I was raised that way, to a certain extent, with the Catholic We Do Not Complain code. Sometimes I actively must put that aside, and a couple of times I put it too far aside. Life's nothing if not a balancing act.
I feel like this somehow relates...one of my very brilliant friends is quickly becoming an expert in human rights and international law. And we often discuss Africa, the way Africa is depicted in the news (the horrors! the famine!), the pervading patronizing attitude of the West to that vibrant continent. The US keeps throwing more money at African problems, and that never quite works, and then we wonder WHat The Hell Those People Did with all the money, when, in fact, horrible US-backed warlords are taking all the aid and not distributing it.
So I guess my question is mostly about how hard one should look for the source of a problem. When do you stop saying, there must be a reason that little Jimmy didn't do his homework, and start disciplining Jimmy instead? How can you see that line between an excuse and a reason?
Somebody like Yoda would say something like You will know the answer when you need to know it, or The answer is within you even now, young kStyle.
But there's nobody like Yoda, is there?
Thanks, Emma and Larry, for your wisdom. I think you are right, I shall know it when I see it. My own advice to myself, about everything, is "meditate to still your mind so that you may see clearly."
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