"I Only Say This Because I Love You" by Deborah Tannen

The mother thinks she's expressing love and concern for her daughter's health or well-being, but the daughter hears something more like "There's something wrong with you." The same goes for statements disguised as questions, such as "Do you really need another piece of cake?" or "Did you notice they also have salmon?" -- asked by a wife who claims she's "just watching out for" her husband. Many examples of weighted phrases Tannen points out are so automatic that we probably don't even hear ourselves saying them. A seemingly innocent "I'm counting on you," for example, sends the message that the request needs special reinforcement because the person being asked to pitch in cannot really be trusted.

Families are inherently hierarchical, and family members' pecking order inevitably turns these seemingly innocuous messages into fightin' words. Tannen calls this the "control continuum": Equality among all family members is an ideal that can never be reached, and family members use their positions to jostle for the right to make demands and have them met. A woman in her late 20s is preparing Thanksgiving dinner for her family. As she gets together the ingredients, her mother asks, "Oh, you put onions in the stuffing?" The daughter explodes, accusing her mother of criticizing everything she does. The mother retorts, "I just asked a question. What's got into you? I can't even open my mouth."

Who's right? Well, both. The daughter is overreacting to a small comment, but the mother did imply a lack of confidence in the daughter's ability to handle the dinner -- as the person higher up in the hierarchy, the mother's words carry extra weight. Most children want approval from parents, no matter how old they are. Tannen's advice to parents is to accept that they have to act to some degree "like guests" in their adult children's homes, but that they should think of that not as stifling themselves but as "acknowledging the special power you have as parents and choosing to wield it with discretion."

Alongside the "control continuum" is the "connection continuum." Family members have to figure out the right balance between closeness and distance --feeling "protected and safe" but not "overwhelmed and suffocated." The two continuums frequently overlap, which is what makes it hard to decipher all the metamessages at play in a conversation. Often, what you may think is a gesture of connection ("Wait, I want to come with you, but I won't be ready for half an hour") can come across to the other person as a power move ("You may be eager to get going, but I'm going to make you wait").

As in all of Tannen's books, there are a lot of pointers in "I Only Say This" that sound like they could, if followed, actually help people get along better. "Pay attention to metamessages" is Tannen's main piece of advice, and whenever possible "metacommunicate": Be as explicit as possible about what you want to communicate to the other person. (What Tannen doesn't acknowledge is that that requires knowing exactly what you want from other people, which is another skill entirely.) Don't say "I'm counting on you," say "I'm not completely confident that you'll do it," and the ensuing conversation will have a whole different tenor.

Next Page: The excruciating art of apologizing

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