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I have consistently witnessed a cultural blind spot in how we parent, how we divorce, and our society at large:
Naming impact.
We act like our choices—how we behave, what we say, how we spend, or even how we govern—exist in a vacuum. We haven’t yet taught our kids, who grow up and become members of society, that what they do ripples outward.
Every morning, my son waits until the very last second to get out of bed and ready for school. It stresses me out. I have to change my whole day to drive him if he misses the bus, and it often sets my nervous system on high alert. I’ve tried it all: anger, yelling, questioning why he does this.
But the other day, I did something different. I simply talked to him about it, explaining how his actions affect me.
This is what psychologist Terry Real calls installing the “empathy chip.” It’s a small but powerful way to teach accountability, awareness, and the ripple effect of our choices.
It’s the missing piece of accountability: the part that teaches us to see beyond ourselves.
Another experience where I noticed this blind spot was through my divorce and with the clients I guide through theirs. Watching how some people navigate relationships without recognizing how their actions affect spouses, children, or even extended family has shown me, over and over, that this lack of accountability persists well into adulthood.
Some men going through divorce feel like the courts are biased toward women. They may have reached a certain wealth or power marker, and have been accustomed to operating without external checks and balances for so long. To them, the court requirements of financial disclosures, child-centered decision making, or any type of requested transparency are “punishments” instead of accountability.
If we broaden our view, this lack of accountability or absence of impact still holds true when we look at people or systems who hold immense power.
I feel this viscerally when I hear about Jeffrey Epstein and the systems that allowed his impact to go unnoticed for years. It was like wealth, power, and cultural collateral allowed him to create some kind of parallel universe where his impact diminished into thin air because he had a group to help screen it.
We’ve seen it with political leaders, who make decisions that affect millions yet often operate as if consequences are someone else’s problem.
And we see it in institutions like ICE, where workers and policies can have profound, life‑altering impacts on families and communities without meaningful oversight.
Even the many tech moguls, especially those who have built empires from algorithms, operate in environments where the consequences of their decisions on privacy, mental health, labor, public discourse, or even our children’s well-being are often invisible to them.
What happened to checks balances that our government required?
Why haven’t we started instilling this awareness of impact in our children?
Rules and regulations exist, but without conscious accountability, limits on paper are not enough. The half-uttered “sorry” (if it comes at all) doesn’t hold any true recognition of the very real, very deep consequences of our actions.
What is frightening and gut-wrenching for me is that most of these people think wealth or power offers them a buffer to accountably. And in some ways, unfortunately, they are right.
But now we are seeing the consequences of this blind spot, and in many cases, it’s already too late. (Think of those young girls or the detained families, of all the lives disrupted, and how the list only grows as more unfolds.)
With my divorce, ultimately I didn’t care about how the money or possessions got divided. I didn’t desire to “punish” him. What I deeply desired was for him to see me: my values and effort, how I too helped to build what we had, to understand how his actions affect me, and what I cared for the most—our children.
This is accountability. This is impact.
This is not misplaced anger.
It’s the understanding part. It’s the can you pivot from “you as the center” part. The deepest pain I carry holds a sort of reach for that still today. And, wow, how this awareness has changed how I parent a young man.
We like to think our American life is built on rugged, individualistic values. Yet we are often blind to the many ways our collective builds the structures that allow the few to excel—from roads to families, and the invisible labor carried on our backs so others can thrive. Many Ayn Rand devotees stand taller than ever in today’s society, but at what cost?
I think of what social psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt explains in “The Righteous Mind” about how humans are primarily intuitive rather than purely rational, moral actors. Our moral judgments are driven by gut instincts (what he calls our “elephants”) with reasoning coming afterward to justify them. He also details that morality evolved to bind us to groups, which helped humans survive, but it also blinds us to perspectives outside our own.
My reach to understand the evolutionary basis for this is in no way an excuse for harm or negligence. Rather, it’s maybe a hope that even small, conscious practices can help us transcend these blind spots.
One simple, tangible place to start is teaching children to apologize for the impact of their choices, not just the act itself.
Even this small step plants the seed for accountability, empathy, and moral awareness, giving us some sort of power when larger systems feel overwhelming or hopeless.
Maria Montessori reminds us that freedom within limits is not restrictive. They are the very foundation that allows the ultimate freedom. Buddhist philosophy echoes this, emphasizing awareness of the ripple effects of our actions.
Limits are not chains, biases, or arbitrary restrictions as some may complain. They actually are the very architecture of accountability.
They teach us to notice the consequences of our choices, guide us toward ethical action, and protect the people and systems around us—the ones we all benefit from. They build sustainable and cooperative societies.
Too often, we shorthand freedom to mean once we have enough money or power, we can do want we want. Or once I am old enough to drive, I don’t have to deal with mom’s timing. But even with this new freedom, they’re still accountable—to traffic laws, to the safety of others, to the ripple effect of their choices.
We haven’t connected for them how their choices affect the family or society at large. When actions have no guardrails, that is where power begins to corrupt.
Ultimately, freedom without accountability is an illusion.
Imagine if Buddha and Rand had a child. How would they teach them to apologize? How should we teach our sons and daughters that something small, like waking up late, still has impact? What is my son learning when I pause to remind him of this?
Not only is it time we teach this to children, but remember it ourselves, and demand it from the systems and people who think they have earned the right to be untouchable.
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