Not Quite the Right Thing to Say
Hello all!
Welcome to this month’s newsletter - a mishmash of career and life reflections that I’m eking out while trying to keep up with an increasingly alert, hungry, and fascinating newborn.
To kick off the newsletter, this month’s parenting anecdote is less about parenting, and more about co-parenting.
Parenthood is a massive, earth-moving transformation for both parents. However, (in heteronormative scenarios) I think women tend to have an especially heightened experience given the physical responsibilities of pregnancy and delivery and then the actual parenting part. For women, a big part of the early days of parenting involve feeding the baby - which is an around the clock responsibility. There is no bossier boss than a newborn demanding to be fed. Regardless if mom is nursing, pumping, bottle feeding or formula feeding, she is usually the primary decision maker on these matters, and thus spends a lot (A LOT) of time - including middle of the night hours - actually feeding the kiddo. It’s an around-the-clock job and takes up a lot of mindshare.
Of course, dads are awesome. They pick up the household tasks, wait on mom and baby hand and foot, change a truly incredible volume of diapers.. but I think the momming experience (again, in a heteronormative scenario) is asymmetrically challenging. Again, there’s the anxiety of caring for a child, plus the physical pain and discomfort of carrying, delivering and feeding a kid, PLUS the matter of one’s body totally changing to accommodate the kid’s housing and sustenance.
I say all this as preamble to this newsletter’s anecdote and to let the record show: I love my husband, he has been an A+++++ dad and husband in these first few weeks.
AND YET.
There have been moments that I want to murder him.
Exhibit A:
Let me set the scene: It’s the end of a long day of many sporadic spells of baby fussing and screaming for no apparent reason, and upwards of 8 feeding sessions before 9pm. Baby is 3 weeks old and no one knows what the heck they are doing.
Me: (weepy, tired and sad, covered in milk and spit up. Despondently asking my husband): Will I ever look cute again?
Husband: long thoughtful pause. Too long.
Husband: I don’t know. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
Welp. That was simply not the right thing to say to a lady in my state of mind at the time. Acceptable responses would have been:
“Of COURSE you will be!”
and
“You’re CURRENTLY still cute, what in heavens name are you talking about?”
But. My trustworthy, consistent, direct husband is a man of rational, considered thought, NOT a man of platitudes.
Looking back on it now, I suppose it was (kind of) a funny response, but in the moment t’was not even the slightest bit funny. It triggered a lot of emotions, and the primal instinct to scream at him for being entirely insensitive and not at all empathetic. However, in light of doing this whole thing (y’know, life, and family raising) with a partner, I’ve been trying to limit bickering (slash, primal screaming) on every point. There are just too many things to debate and bicker over when two people are under the stress and sleep deprivation of raising an infant. So, instead of actually snapping, and instead of repressing the urge to snap, I actively tried to take a third approach, which is the real topic of this week’s newsletter. This approach involves trying to apply a strengths-based framework to understand a perspective that is different from my own.
“Strength based framework”, you ask?
Let me break it down for you because beyond this somewhat humorous example of how co-parenthood has its challenges, this approach has a broader application for interpersonal dynamics at work too. In both contexts, multiple people need to make a decision, oftentimes under stress, and these people have different biases, temperaments and strengths. Sometimes these perspectives are vastly different!
A strength-based perspective focuses on identifying and building upon individuals' strengths and resources, rather than solely focusing on problems and deficits. The framework focuses on someone’s individual talents and abilities, vs - what we perceive to be - their shortcomings. Where are they strong, vs where are they wrong!1
In the example above - focusing on the wrong would sound something like: “That was insensitive, offensive and not supportive at all!” The strong, which considers a broader context including (but not limited to) my husband’s sense of humor, his love language and his strengths would sound something like: “Humor is his attempt at making me feel better. A very logical answer that requires more data is also very standard for him, knowing what I know about his strengths.”
By focusing on the strong, my initial reaction of “I want to murder you” relaxes, and I can then consider an even broader context:
“I am reminded that this person views the world through lenses of logic and rationality and this results in them being direct, rational and decisive." While these lenses are very different from my foundational lenses (FYI - I would consider mine to be more emotion-forward, reassuring and empathetic), I can try to see the inherent strengths in their point of view.
Once I was able to focus on these strengths (and thereby relax the urge to murder him), what then came to mind was recent co-parenting example that highlighted our differences - an example that reminded me that his strengths (while again, very different from mine) are overtly positive:
Our infant was born with a pretty severe tongue tie, and we were given the choice to release it with a mini in-office procedure. This is apparently a highly controversial procedure and many parents, doctors and the New York Times (ofc) all have strong and polarized opinions about it, which I quickly discovered as I immediately took to the interwebs to research what other parents have done and how traumatic it would be. I proceeded to drown in analysis paralysis. There was no clear cut answer, and no emotional reassurance (my love language, FYI), on what the ‘right’ choice would be.
On the other hand, my husband chose instead to weigh the facts rationally, considered our family history, assessed potential risks and potential benefits provided by a non-biased physician, and swiftly and decisively steered us to a next step. I meanwhile, remained mired in emotion agony (oh, and hormonal fluctuations, I’m sure).
A great example of his strengths being critical (and complementary) in our partnership!
Trying to operate from this perspective certainly makes personal relationships easier, and I believe there is a highly relevant application in a work setting as well. Similar to how we often choose partners with traits totally different to our own, we often find ourselves in work settings with people that have strengths completely different from ours. We are constantly being asked to co-exist and collaborate with people we may not identify with.
Of course when we aren’t triggered by an offhand comment or a heated exchange, we logically understand and value these complementary strengths and weaknesses. But all it takes is one extreme example of a polar-opposite trait on display, to send us into a fury.
“WHY is this person so absurd? WHERE DO THEY GET OFF being this way? HOW could they say that? CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS GUY?”
You know what? It feels good to be indignant. Even though viewing others in a strength based framework is actually likely to produce an overall better working relationship, acknowledging that in the moment doesn’t feel nearly as good as spazzing. Our feelings need to be AIRED OUT.
But I think we all know that while venting feels nice in the short term, it doesn’t actually feel good to hold something against someone all the time. Complaining and rallying support around our complaints feel good initially, but it’s toxic on an ongoing basis - especially if we are in a long term arrangement with said person. A long term arrangement like… marriage! Or a full-time job we intend to stay at!
Why does it feel so hard to acknowledge someone’s very different approach to a problem? Well, our knee jerk reaction is to get that person to act in the same way that we would have acted. In the exchange above, I would have responded with warmth and reassurance! I would have immediately given a compliment!
Of course not everyone has the same instincts and defaults. Partnerships and teams are not comprised of identical cookie cutter versions of YOU, for good reason. Offsetting/complementary personality types are critical to get things done. Think of different positions on a sports team - some people are good at throwing, some people are good at blocking and tackling. Some people are good at running. Everyone is meant to be good at different things, and complement each other.
An example from own career experience: I’m not a front line salesperson anymore, and there’s a reason for that. I didn’t love ‘making the ask’ or following up consistently, especially if it felt like a client wasn’t inherently interested. My role now focuses on organizing and managing salespeople, a role that I think capitalizes on my actual strengths - planning, organizing and connecting the dots. But in this role, everyday I am surrounded by people who exhibit the characteristics I don’t see in myself as strengths, and therefore inadvertently undervalue. They are bold, direct, able to self-promote and follow up repeatedly and aggressively. They are salespeople after all! And while sometimes my instinct is to be put off or triggered by these traits; I remember that these characteristics make these people both 1) very different from me, and 2) very good at their job.
A few examples from recent dialogue with clients below, that may resonate with you!
“The lawyers I work with are way too immersed in the minutiae. They boil the ocean and waste time poring over details. It’s slowing us down.”
Strength-based perspective: “Thank god there’s a team dedicated to catching mistakes in the details that I might miss. That frees up my time to spend on other commercial items. I can learn from their approach to get into the weeds when I really need to.”
“My colleague is so self-aggrandizing. They have no problem talking up their achievements and exaggerating their results. It drives me nuts.”
Strength-based perspective: “I kind of admire that person’s confidence. They buy their own hype, and maybe that’s the first step to get others onboard. Where could I toot my own horn a bit more?”
I know it’s not always easy to gently pivot to the strengths-based framework… but building that muscle can build the ability to reframe some of the more frustrating or challenging contexts we’re faced with, and strengthen relationships in the long run - What a win!
And finally, another, and perhaps the most important reason why viewing things from a strength-based perspective matters: it can impact how we view ourselves.
By building the muscle of focusing on strengths first, we can offset our all-too-common negativity bias. The framework, when applied to ourselves encourages us to take inventory of our strengths and inherent resources. The approach is hope-inducing. And reminds us that we are experts in our strengths and situations and intrinsically will know what to do in most situations.
We are confronted with numerous situations everyday with partners, colleagues, family members and ourselves where we can choose to view things as a strength or as an annoying weakness. If we try to approach things with a strengths-first mindset, and reminder that we are experts in our strengths, abilities and choices - I think we end up feeling more empowered, less triggered and more hopeful.
Who’s up for more of that feeling?!
On the topic of strengths assessment - I wrote in more detail about our strengths in a prior newsletter, back in 2022:
As always, I’d love to hear from you so that I can continue to write about topics (work, relationships, parenting, other!) that resonate with you
https://positivepsychology.com/social-work-strength-based-approach/