@matthiasjbarker: There are two clean ways to confront a parent: a request ("hey, can you take off your shoes?") and a boundary ("if you keep walking in with your shoes on, I'm going to close the door"). Both are fair game, and you're allowed to bring either one to a parent, whether it's about the past or something happening right now. Where it goes sideways is when a request comes out as a demand, because a demand almost never lands the way you're hoping it will. And it's easy to walk in swinging from your hurt and call it honesty, but the conversations that actually move something come from a grounded place, not from the open wound. If you're trying to have one of these conversations with a parent and it keeps turning into more tension, that's the ground my free workshop Navigating the Divide covers: how to bring hard things up without it spiraling into a fight, and how to hold your peace whether or not they meet you there. Link in bio!

Matthias J Barker

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Friday 10 July 2026 20:08:28 GMT