If a child is emotionally shamed or physically punished for asking for what they want or need, is it any wonder they’ll have trouble asking as adults? We like to think a difficult childhood is “in the past.” But without therapy—or a commitment to self-healing—our struggles with asking are apt to follow us into adulthood.
I wrote a book about asking: why we don’t, why we should, and how to do it effectively. When you ask people about their experiences with asking, as I did, you quickly learn that, for many, it comes with baggage.
The story you’re about to read was submitted by a friend of mine, “Carleen,” a woman in her sixties. As you’ll discover, her father had a sadistic streak. But that’s just a detail. The larger point is that she grew up believing that asking comes at too high a price. And that’s a lesson even those who grew up in more “normal” households may have learned.
Here’s her story.
“How I Learned Not to Ask”
Dad was at the top of his field and made a lot of money, but if we asked for anything we knew he would hold it over our heads, shaming us for it—if not resorting to crueler punishments.
In the mid-1960s, my 12-year-old brother asked our mom for a pair of ankle boots like the Beatles wore, which he saw in the Sears Wish Book catalog.
When the boots arrived, Dad was furious. But instead of returning the boots for a refund, he took my brother into the basement, put the boots in a vice, and made him watch as he sawed them in half.
Another time, Mom told him that all she wanted for Christmas was a hat. On Christmas morning, Dad was smiling when he handed her a hatbox and invited her to open it.
When she removed the lid, she discovered a pressure cooker inside. He had actually gone to the trouble of getting a hatbox to put it in, to enjoy even more my mother’s disappointment in not getting what she asked for.
Though I worked while in college, I was often broke. I went to the mall one day with a friend, my winter shoes full of holes, to buy a new pair of shoes. I found myself unable to decide between two pairs of $9 shoes on closeout.
“Get both!” my friend said.
But I couldn’t afford both, nor could I bring myself to ask Dad for money for the shoes. By that point in my life, I resented him and I resented money for how badly both made me feel about myself.
Once I hit my 20s, I never asked him for anything ever again, because asking always came at too high a price.
He was cheap with himself, too. He never took vacations, even though he had millions in the bank.
After he died, my siblings and I found boxes with each of our names on them. Each box contained receipts of everything we’d cost him, from the time we were children to the time we’d moved out of the house—birthday presents, school supplies, dental bills, music lessons—every expense was archived. It seemed to be proof that he saw us as takers, and expensive ones at that.
Thanks to therapy, knowing my own worth has been an ongoing healing process. And though I still don’t find it easy to ask for some things, it’s taken me most of my adult life to learn not to question that I’m worthy of doing so.
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Banner photo by Caleb Woods on Unsplash
Paul Quinn is the author of The Big Ask: Unlock the Possibilities in Your Work, Life & Dreams with Courageous Requests, available in paperback, digital and audiobook formats.