Tough love is an excuse for no love.
Too much toughness with too little love. Focus too much on the tough part without the balance of love.
You are only raising psychopaths.
Some people need a lot more positive reinforcement than toughness.
Sometimes, someone needs a little push, but that push should never involve breaking them down and hurting them.
That’s not tough love, that’s just bullying and humiliation.
Tough love is just frustration turned into anger which is relieved by lashing out. Can’t stand it. Does nothing but abandoning and leaving people.
“Tough love” becomes a translation of, “I’m mad because I don’t know what to do, so I’m going to take it out on you and say it’s because I somewhat care.”
No, the parents are certainly aren’t cool with it, but their own morality stops them from kicking their offspring into the street.
Girls are assumed to be in need of actual guidance, nurturance, and care. Boys, however, are assumed to need little more than just being thrown into situations and left to figure it out. Indeed, doing much, if anything, to provide boys with a safe environment in which to grow up is seen as “coddling” them, to their detriment.
“Tough love” looks like the ultimate cop-out. Boys are neglected and left adrift in myriad ways, down to the radical level of our culture essentially not knowing what to do with them at all, in many ways. When the results are seen as unsatisfying, “tough love” is essentially a call to double-down on what’s already been tried: more neglect, and maybe even actual abuse, to fill in deficits that past neglect and abuse has left. “We didn’t raise you with what you needed to figure this out… so now we’re going to wash our hands of you, and let you figure it out.”
“Tough love” is anything but love; responding to the neglect of young men by doubling down on the neglect.
If neglect and abuse produced strong, capable men, we’d be producing the strongest and most capable men in history. We’re not. We’re very obviously not.
Talk to any decent/good parent. Tough love is absolutely vital to a child growing, maturing and learning.
Tough love is letting your child suffer the consequences of their bad choices or mistakes – it is only though recognizing and living the costs of one’s mistakes that we truly learn to not repeat them.
Raising kids without tough love and you’ll end up seeing your children never truly become adults.
What is best for them in the long run – this requires a certain level of tough love when the conditions call for it. Holding people accountable for their actions, choices and decisions is by far the best thing you can do for them.
Cruelty is not (should not be, anyway) what “tough love” is.
If someone is going through a hard time and you call them lazy, inconsiderate, selfish, threaten connection with them because they are struggling, are you not just making their life harder? I don’t understand this world. Someone going through addictions probably just needs someone to talk with or a hug, or to know their value. With boundaries of course. I don’t get it.
His father want to get tough and kick him out of the nest — in a loving way, but essentially force him to learn to cope with the world. It’s suppose to teach him how to not be in a cushy bubble of entitlement. Safety net enables him to avoid life and the world and to become independent.
Am I just being too soft, as mothers often tend to be?
This “solution” is overly simplistic and could very well be detrimental rather than help.
“Tough love” is neither tough nor love – it’s someone in authority acting childish and immature themselves.
It’s an easy solution on everyone’s part. Parents, caregivers, teachers, supposed mentors, get to avoid the hard work of actual nurturance and guidance, usually for years, and then wash their hands of their own failures.
“Tough love” is in the exact same hole as “discipline,” where it absolutely exists and has a good, proper, edifying form, but that form involves more compassion and patience—not less—than a permissive or neglectful philosophy. Obviously, that takes more effort, nuance, and self-reflection, so it’s bastardized immediately.
All the generations before us grew up on tough love and they turned out horrible. That’s all I have to say on this topic. “Tough Love” is tricky. Really what you want is “Tough Talk.” By that I mean to have someone to tell you the reality of the situation and remind you of the stakes your life has. When you’re too soft on someone for a long time they become complacent, which can be a good or bad thing depending.
You need someone to remind you what is on the line if you don’t shape up. The difference is that you’re not working hard for someone else’s love and affection, you’re working for your own pride and self love.
“stop making excuses for yourself”
“what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”
Consistently got the ‘eat a teaspoon of cement and harden up’ advice for as long as I can remember. Shockingly, telling a naturally hypersensitive kid to just harden up creates dissociation and shame over still being sensitive on the inside. Being gentle, understanding, flexible yet firm with myself has made more progress for my growth than a lifetime of ‘just stop being sensitive and lazy’.
The answer to this is, it depends. There is no excuse for being sadistic, or watching someone fail and get damaged just so they will learn.
So people should be encouraged to stand on their own two legs, but within reason.
Some people just like to feel superior.
When is it “tough love” and when is it “abuse”?
The only thing I could justify as tough love is telling somebody something they don’t want to hear, but need to. And in very specific circumstances, to stop enabling someone’s self-destructive behavior, or basically setting strong healthy boundaries
In reality, we are all at different places with our own self work, self awareness, traumas etc. and had different life experience that shape our relational capacities.
“Relationships take work and efforts.” Like, no matter how much you love gardening, it takes some effort, you’re tired afterwards even if you really enjoyed it, and not every part of it is your absolute favourite.
SOMETIMES. THE PERSON IS BROKEN. They may love you, but they do not know how to love properly. They will genuinely try, and still won’t get it right. And these sort of break ups are hard. so so so hard.
I recoil at the phrase ‘tough love’. I despise it. It’s my nervous system rejecting the concept. It was commonly used by the older generation who lacked emotional intelligence. It’s been scientifically studied and proven to cause shame which worsens depression and anxiety. Those who lack EQ in the present day still think it’s appropriate unfortunately. It has the opposite effect in which it’s intended. It’s harmful, cruel and harsh when someone is already vulnerable and struggling. It doesn’t allow the person who’s struggling to feel seen, heard and understood. They’ll sense the lack of empathy and attunement, shut down and retreat.
In a nutshell, tough love is counterproductive and cruel.