Trust but verify

Doveryai, no proveryai” is a Russian proverb that was ironically made famous by the late US President Ronald Reagan, when he used it to describe his approach to nuclear arms reduction with the Soviet Union in the mid-’80s. In English, it translates to “Trust but verify.” While the phrase might seem like an oxymoron or a contradiction of terms to some, it led to a ground-breaking arms reduction treaty that resulted in the destruction of over 2,600 nuclear bombs! It also ushered in the start of the end of the Cold War. A key insight that can be gleaned from Reagan’s negotiation stance is that trust is a continuum. On one extreme is the absolute lack of belief. This is where the US and the Soviets were during the height of the Cold War and which is why they aimed thousands of missiles at each other at every second of the day. On the other end of the spectrum is blind trust which might be fine and dandy to peaceniks but quite foolish if you have another person pointing a loaded gun at you. Reagan wisely suggested a reasonable middle ground. At the heart of the US-Soviet arms treaty was an agreement to allow both countries to inspect each other’s military installations and confirm each other’s promised arms reductions. If you are still reading this article up to this point, you may already be wondering if you had accidentally turned to the World News section rather than to Health and Family. The answer is no or “nyet” as they would say in Russia. You’re on the right page. It’s just that Reagan’s grand plan for preventing global thermonuclear war might actually also be very good parenting strategy! 

As parents, we all want our kids to grow up as independent and sociable individuals. We therefore want them to freely interact with other people and to give them as much space as possible to grow up on their own. However, the fact is that they are still immature. The world is also now filled with what author Mason Duchatschek calls “terrorists of adolescence” who pose a lot of risks and dangers to our children. These “terrorists” are not just kidnappers or sexual perverts. Because our sons and daughters are constantly bombarded with so much trash from media, and now also from the Internet, they also have to deal with a lot more temptations for reckless behaviors. Given these realities, I therefore think that blindly releasing our kids into the outside (and also cyber) world and assume that they will be okay and will always make the right decisions is a parenting cop-out. On the other hand, it’s not a good idea to lock our children at home or become perpetually hovering “helicopter” parents either (among other things, that would likely result in domestic guerrilla warfare). This is where Reagan’s nuclear arms doctrine might prove useful. First of all, we need to demonstrate our willingness to exercise our parental authority. Just as it helped Reagan that he had thousands of bombs up his sleeve, we need to also make it clear to our children that we ultimately decide what they can or cannot do and that there will be sanctions if they break our trust. Secondly, our kids need to understand that, while we love them with our lives, trust is something that is earned and not just freely given. I think that this is especially critical for teenagers. Only after repeated instances wherein they actually did what they said they were going to do (for example, going home at the agreed time), should we parents consider giving them more liberties. And lastly, even when we do give them more and more freedom, it is still our job as parents to trust but verify. If the parameters are fair, clear, and well explained to our kids, I don’t think they’ll take it as lack of trust or spying. Instead, I believe that they’ll even appreciate us more for trying to do our jobs as parents.

In the end, however, and no matter how reasoned our approach might be, we parents will never be worry-free. That is one of the curses of being parents — we will never really be able to stop worrying about our own flesh and blood. We are likely to make some bad calls. Our kids are still going to make stupid mistakes. And despite the best preparations and preventive measures, terrible things can also still happen. Then again, many people thought that the world would never survive the nuclear arms race of the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s. If we made it through that, then I think that with a balanced parenting approach, we should at least have a fighting chance of surviving our children’s teenager years.

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