Every now and again, we all experience a little moral dilemma. My most recent one was triggered on a park bench.
Yes, this requires a little explanation.
Whilst sitting in the park over the weekend, I was tuned into a conversation between a mother and her two daughters. Her eldest (I’m guessing) looked to be about 9/10 and her youngest was near enough 3-years-old. The older sister had obviously had enough of the younger one’s existence so gave her a quick slap which resulted in some tears. As a younger sibling, I related to the level of torment the older sister was inflicting on the younger one so didn’t really think much of the little one’s tears until the mother said, “just say sorry, that makes everything okay.”
For some reason, that didn’t sit so well with my psyche.
Surely, it’s better to tell the child not to do the bad thing in the first place? This got me thinking about the concept of saying “sorry.” Yes, in the case of the little girls, it seems to be a pretty harmless comment to make, but as we know, kids are super impressionable and if you tell them something, it’s very likely to stick.
So, rather than focusing on the here and now, kids have a future, a future that they’ve been conditioned for from a young age. Should we really be abiding by the rule that you can do and say anything but “sorry” revokes your accountability?
Even better still, do we want our future generation of men and women thinking that they can experience mistreatment but if the person who harmed them says sorry, all will be better. Anyone who has ever been hurt knows that is simply not the case and when that little word is spoken and the hurt does not magically disappear, the frustration can become even more of an emotional crutch. Our forgiveness should be our healing.
These instances go from slap-happy kids into more sinister moments as adults.
Whilst watching Netflix’s Dead To Me, I also noticed that when Judy’s ex-boyfriend raises his voice to her or grabs her arm, he immediately says “I’m sorry,” to which she automatically says “it’s okay.” This happens multiple times and the routine of it all is a little worrying and is probably something we all do on different scales.
The pattern of a negative action receiving immediate redemption really detracts from the impact of the action in the first place. But, really, is the concept of being regretful not with the idea that you will not make the same mistake again. If something has truly made you feel remorse and guilt, is it not a long-lasting feeling rather than a repentance for the most recent error? It seems that an apology in this sense, is more for the sake of the other person than expressing how regretful you feel for your actions.
If the action we have taken is wiped away in an act of forgiveness, so are those feelings of shame and guilt and we’re more likely to do it again. We learn from our consequences at a young age – if you burn yourself playing with fire, you’re not exactly going to go back and do it again. In the same way, if we’re instantly forgiven, our brains do not experience trauma and we don’t learn not to do the bad thing again.
The term “I’m sorry,” seems to be a free-pass to doing whatever you like, however, is our own susceptibility to forgiveness actually what is causing a pattern of negativity in the first place?