When being right becomes wrong.

I overheard a conversation the other day, between a little girl and her father, which stuck with me. The little girl had asked a question about someone traveling in the opposite direction, referring to them as ‘he’. The conversation quickly changed into something else, as they battered backwards and forwards in a disagreement. One was adamant, “It was a she…” and the other just as adamant that “It was a he!” It wasn't that I expected a child so young to appreciate it wasn’t their decision to make, never mind be so obstinate about, or how hurtful it could have been to someone overhearing. What surprised me, and stuck with me, was that the original conversation and their time together, became lost in a need to be right.

They were suddenly, and increasingly, annoyed with each other. The mood of their trip had vastly changed – over something that wasn’t important to their conversation or their lives and was really none of their business. For the remainder of the journey they were silent and visibly unhappy. They had lost themselves and each other, however temporarily, in their desire to be right.

I have always been careful to remind my daughter that it’s OK to be ‘wrong’ – that we’re all learning in one way or another - but that it’s just not OK to lie. I admit when I get things wrong. I admit when I don’t know the answer and when I’ve made a wrong decision. Although I’d really like to be, I’m far from perfect. I don’t like being wrong, it turns my stomach and I’ll dwell on the situation, but I’m resigned to it. I know it will happen and I try and learn from it. I want to be better. Always.

My daughter has a stronger streak of perfectionism. When people point out she’s getting it wrong, or not doing it ‘right’, then she backs away and quickly loses interest. I’ve spent many a time trying to coax her back in to an activity because someone has questioned her answer or her approach. Curiously, if she’s crafting or ‘building’ then she likes to do it her own way. She will not necessarily want to follow the instructions but at the same time can feel guilty, and question her design ideas, if someone chooses to tell her she hasn’t ‘done it right’ because it doesn’t exactly match the original picture. I’m trying to encourage her to feel confident enough to politely ask if it really matters that she follows the instructions precisely or if she has a little leeway to do it her own way. Dangerous tasks mean following instructions precisely but where art is concerned, can she have a little more freedom of choice? Every chef likes to tinker with a recipe.

It is this pattern of my daughter’s interaction with adults that made me realise that when an adult tells a child they are ‘doing it wrong’, they mean it is not being done in the way they expected. Then I realised this applied to how those same adults behaved with me.

I know it seems glaringly obvious, but it flicked a switch for me and shone a new light on my relationships. My most comfortable relationships are not with the people who are like me, but who let me be me. We may not do things the same way, but we allow each other the freedom to do it our own way. My most challenging relationships, and I don’t mean that in a good way, are the ones where they have expectations of how I should behave or respond, based on what they would do. It’s not to say I don’t love those people, but I find that these relationships are the most stressful.

Essentially, a lot of the time when we call out people for ‘doing it wrong’, we mean that they’re not doing the way that we would do it. I’m not referring to legality and illegality. I’m not talking about abuse or risking someone’s life or health. Nothing of that nature. This is about the small things that should not cause argument.

Our childhood development is centred on being right. We get the messages of ‘well done’ and ‘clever’ for knowing the right word, or the right spelling, or the right number in a calculation. We are trained to deliver the ‘right’ answer and I’m not saying this is wrong, but somewhere along the way we seem to have lost appreciation for opinion in our education. We seem to want to be right always, even when there’s really no need for it to be ‘one or the other’, and even if it is essentially none of our business. We seem to be losing an appreciation for choice and nuance, and a respect for other people’s preferences.

It’s not something I can give a resolution to here. I don’t have ‘the right answer’ and can’t tie this up neatly in a bow, but it’s something I’ll be dwelling on over the coming weeks. My daughter goes back to school this week and whilst her school teachers will be educating her the age relevant syllabus, I know one of my jobs is to ‘teach’ her the other life lessons. Right now, this one seems key. It’s my #mondaymotivation.

If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this piece, please consider whether you would benefit from accessing relevant support.

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