By Stan Chung

Op-Ed Commentary

What Childhood Teaches us about Power, Accountability, and Mercy

“I know what’s best.”

How many times have we said that to our children?

Sometimes we really do know better. We have experience and an obligation to protect them.

But what happens when they disagree?

“I’m doing this for your own good.”

“As long as you live under my roof, you follow my rules.”

We think we’re teaching children responsibility. But children are also learning how people with power treat those who depend on them.

Imagine your employer or union speaking to you that way. We might call it arrogance or bullying.

At home, we sometimes call it good parenting.

Why?

Where Our Greatest Learning Begins

Childhood is where much of our deepest learning about authority begins.

Before children can explain fairness, they experience it. Before they understand power, they live under it. Before they can define love, they discover whether it comes with conditions.

I am an adult child of addiction. My father was abusive. I learned that being right mattered enormously.

I needed to be right because being wrong could mean punishment. I needed to be right because being wrong could mean I was useless.

And perhaps most painfully, I needed to be right because I wanted my father to love me.

Other children learn different lessons. Some learn to please, some to rebel, some to disappear. Some learn that authority can be questioned without love being withdrawn.

What looks like obedience may be fear. What looks like independence may be a child who has learned that asking for help is dangerous.

These lessons don’t determine our futures. But they can shape how we respond to authority long after childhood ends.

And becoming a parent doesn’t automatically free us from them.

The Authority We Carry

We don’t leave our childhood lessons at the dinner table.

We carry them into workplaces, friendships, marriages, and public institutions.

How do we respond when a supervisor questions our judgment? Do we become defensive, withdraw, or feel compelled to prove ourselves right?

When we supervise others, what happens when someone makes a mistake?

Do we become curious or angry? Do we help them learn or make them afraid of disappointing us?

And can we imagine continuing to work together after someone challenges our authority?

I have held positions of authority for much of my working life. I wonder how often my own need to be right has made it harder for someone else to be heard.

But needing to be right is only one way childhood can shape authority.

Some of us punish mistakes because mistakes were punished in us. Others avoid difficult conversations because disagreement once threatened relationships.

Some mistake silence for respect. Others confuse obedience with trust.

How do we apologize when we’ve caused harm? Can we forgive without demanding humiliation? Can we offer mercy when someone has genuinely failed us?

Mercy, that word challenges me.

The Authority We Teach Our Children

These questions are not simply management skills. They concern what we believe gives one person the right to exercise power over another.

Where Does Authority Come From?

Parents have legitimate authority. Children need protection, guidance, boundaries, and sometimes decisions they cannot yet make themselves.

But where does that authority come from?

Our age? Our experience? Our money? The house we own? The sacrifices we’ve made?

Or from our responsibility to help another human being grow into someone who can eventually disagree with us?

When we say, “I’m doing this for your own good,” who decides what good means?

When we say, “My house, my rules,” are we teaching responsibility or reminding someone who controls the resources? Oh, how my own need for control still challenges me.

The same questions arise wherever people hold authority.

A supervisor may have the right to make decisions without having the best ideas. A teacher may enforce rules without understanding a student’s circumstances. A governor may demand accountability while resisting scrutiny of their own decisions.

Our sense of responsibility and care should increase with the power to shape another person’s circumstances.

Authority doesn’t make us right. Nor does being right entitle us to dominate.

The deeper test is how we treat people when they disagree, disappoint us, or depend on our goodwill.

What Happens When We Become Vulnerable?

Consider a seniors’ residence where residents hire the administrator, oversee finances, and govern their own home.

Some residents need help dressing, eating, or managing their health.

Does needing assistance mean surrendering authority over their lives?

At hospice, our dependence may become nearly absolute. We may need help with everything, yet still want to decide who visits, what matters, and how we spend our remaining time.

The caregiver may know more about medicine, safety, or physical needs.

But does that mean knowing what is best for the person?

Our vulnerability should increase the responsibility of those who care for us, not diminish our dignity.

Why should childhood be any different?

When the Power Changes Hands

And then one day, you grow old. Your children have children of their own.

You miss them.

You wish they would visit more often, bring the grandchildren, stay for dinner. You remember when the house was full.

“Do you love me?” you want to ask.

After all, you raised them. Fed them. Clothed them. Taught them right from wrong. They lived under your roof.

You remember everything you gave them.

Perhaps they remember things you have forgotten.

Now they have their own homes, responsibilities, and ideas about what you need.

“Dad, I’m doing this for your own good.”

You’re startled.

“We know what’s best.”

And perhaps, if you’ve moved into their home:

“As long as you live under our roof, you follow our rules.”

You recognize the words.

You taught them.

You want to explain that you’re not asking for charity. You’re asking for a relationship.

That needing someone doesn’t mean surrendering your dignity.

That love shouldn’t require obedience.

But your children learned these lessons long before they had children of their own.

They learned that the person who provides the home makes the rules. That knowing what is best gives you the right to decide. That love sometimes means making someone obey.

They believe they are being responsible.

Just as you did.

And now, when you most need their tenderness, they offer you the authority you taught them.

You recognize the words.

You taught them.

– Stan Chung, PhD is a writer and speaker who lives on Ktunaxa homelands. Contact him at [email protected].

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