The ardor of the young should be curbed slowly, lest by wishing to oppose them with sudden impediments we drive them to despair and perdition.
—Giovanni Boccaccio
In 1941, Mary Churchill accepted the marriage proposal of a young man named Eric Duncannon. She was young and inexperienced. They barely knew each other. A war raged around them. Duncannon was almost certainly not the right fit for her. Naturally, her parents—the heads of a political dynasty in a time of rigid aristocratic marriages—were concerned.
But as Erik Larson details in his book The Splendid and the Vile, instead of condemning her daughter, Clementine Churchill simply asked her daughter if she was certain it was the right choice. She didn’t disapprove outright, but she did let her daughter know she had some doubts. Then, understanding that no daughter wants to be told whom to marry by her parents, Clementine searched for someone her daughter trusted and respected whom she could ask to weigh in, independently and casually. She landed on Averell Harriman, one of Churchill’s advisers, who was dating Mary’s sister- in-law.
Harriman took the young, impulsive girl aside. “He said all the things I should have told myself,” Mary later reflected. He told her that her whole life was before her. And that she “should not accept the first person who comes along. You have not met many people. To be stupid about one’s life is a crime.”
All this began to sink in with Mary, who then, after a few weeks, decided of her own volition to break off the engagement. It was her idea . . . but she
came to later understand how lucky she was that her parents had helped her get there. “What would have happened had Mummie not intervened?” she wrote. “Thank God for Mummie’s sense—understanding and love.”
Our kids are going to do stuff we disagree with, but very rarely— especially as they get older—will we be able to convince them of this by force or fiat. We have to be understanding. We have to be patient . . . maybe even a little bit sneaky. We have to give them advice and the tools to make sense of that advice, because ultimately they are the ones who have to figure out the right decision for themselves. And we have to make sure they know that no matter what they decide, we love them.