This week’s questions are both connected to facing the desire to step in and do something, one in anticipation of a choice and the other in retrospect.
The first question comes from Christine in Frederic:
“My daughter’s prom is approaching, and she told me she doesn’t have a date. My friend’s son is also dateless and looking for a date. I want to play matchmaker and set them up to go to each other’s proms. Should I ask my daughter first or just set it up?”
Surely your excitement and intentions in this situation are coming from love and wanting the best for your daughter, and that’s worth pausing and celebrating, no matter what you choose.
Before you dive in and make a match for her, it’s probably helpful to find out how your daughter actually feels. She might be having a wide range of thoughts and emotions about this, and finding out if she is leaning more toward indifferent, embarrassed or eager creates an opportunity for you to connect and better understand how she wants to handle it. Having a conversation about how you can support her and what she wants can help you determine whether or not the matchmaking is your next step.
Whether or not you decide to step in and make this connection, you’ll want to make sure you love your reasons for doing so. This might mean just asking yourself what kind of parent you want to be in this situation. How do you want to support your daughter? This kind of reflection and question can be helpful at many points in parenting, even after this event.
The second question this week comes from Naomi in Frederic, Wisconsin:
“I was recently at a stand-up comedy show in the Twin Cities, and the couple behind us kept talking loudly. It was very distracting. I’m surprised the comedian didn’t say anything. I wanted to turn around and say something. But my husband wouldn’t let me. What should I have done?”
This situation may feel extra challenging because you not only didn’t get the outcome you hoped for during the show, but you also didn’t feel like you had the chance to advocate for that outcome at the event.
To start, you were faced with wanting the couple behind you to stop talking, but also feeling surprised or disappointed that others, including the comedian, didn’t step in. It’s common to want other people to act or show up in a certain way, but when they don’t, it shifts to you to find a way to manage your experience, even if others don’t step up.
Additionally, if deferring to your husband felt like a familiar pattern, that part might have more weight in your experience than if this were an infrequent occurrence. Either way, it’s worth considering what might have felt more aligned for you in that moment.
Even if you couldn’t guarantee anyone else changed their behavior, how do you wish you had handled it? How would you be feeling different if you had done it that way?
Both reader questions this week connect to this impulse to act or do something, and what gets in the way of doing so. Whether you’re pondering what’s next or reflecting on what happened, bringing curiosity to what you really want and why is a great place to start.
Midwest Moxie: Coaching for Your Life appears bi-weekly. Have a coaching question you want answered by a Master-Certified Coach? Visit Kari’s website to submit your coaching question at https://heykarianne.com/ask-kari.