This article has been adapted from “Are Boundaries Making Women Cold?” at Philosophy of Motherhood.
Few ideas have shaped modern relationships more than boundaries, particularly for women. We set them with co-workers, friends, parents and even our children. Without boundaries, we feel unprotected. They define the physical, emotional and mental space where one person ends and another begins, establishing what is and isn’t acceptable.
But as boundaries become central to how we relate to others, a quieter question emerges: Are they also making us more distant — more guarded, even a little colder?
Brené Brown wrote, “Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves even when we risk disappointing others.”
But a mind too full of self-love, too focused on preserving our own comfort and protecting our own rights, leaves us with less mental space to recognize the world of others.
When does the demand for boundaries cause us to miss opportunities for human connection?
The rise of boundaries
The sudden rise in boundary-setting has been, in part, a reaction to cultural changes. The stigmas and mores of the past are steadily dissolving. When everything is accepted, no one is quite sure what behavior is unacceptable.
The modern assaults on good manners and respect seem to affect women the most. We are the ones struggling to keep the food warm when a last-minute text tells us our guests are arriving 30 minutes late. These shifts reach into the most intimate parts of family life. Stories about children cutting off parents, even to the point of refusing to allow them to see their grandchildren, have become increasingly common. In one story in the Deseret News, Christmas presents from loving grandparents to their grandchildren were returned.
Much of this increase in boundary setting, then, may be a reasonable reaction to an unstable world. However, perhaps we are beginning to use boundaries to justify a kind of coldheartedness.
When love calls for boundary crossing
Years ago, driving down a busy freeway with four young children fighting in the back, my car sputtered, and I pulled over. I had run out of gas without noticing the fuel light. Of course, it happened on an on-ramp with no shoulder. My husband was out of town and, honestly, I was freaking out. My mind scanned through my friends. Who could I call? I knew immediately: Lindsay.
Any boundary-adherent would have advised her to say no, and for good reason. She was pregnant and homeschooling her three young children — she didn’t need any more duties. But I called her because she has a large and open heart. She arrived with all her kids, ran onto that busy on-ramp, gave me a reassuring hug, gathered my children, double buckled them in, and took them home while I dealt with the car.
The Gospels offer a striking example of this same principle. Christ and his followers were pushing through a rowdy crowd. In the chaos, Jesus felt the purposeful touch of a woman. His disciples probably wanted to get out of there, but he stopped and connected with that suffering woman, healing her of a disease that had left her labeled “unclean” in the eyes of others.
Christ described the way he would recognize his true disciples: “For I was hungry, and you gave me food: I was thirsty, and you gave me drink: I was a stranger, and you took me in. … Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me.”
When we are open to inconvenience, to changed plans, extra work or demands on us, we are demonstrating Christlike love. Boundaries may protect us, but love transforms us and others.
Parenting, a boundary-destroyer
The most boundary-destroying of all endeavors has got to be motherhood. Perhaps that is why motherhood is increasingly framed as a burden rather than a privilege. In a world that demands respect for boundaries, children are no respecters of boundaries. Yet no endeavor opens our heart more completely to love.
I had an incredibly colicky newborn, and my family lived thousands of miles away. I stayed up all night pacing our tiny apartment, trying to soothe him and keep him from waking the neighbors. Nursing was painful and awkward. He spit everything up. He would not gain weight. I had no idea what I was doing.
But I loved that little boy with a love I did not know was possible. And each baby after that felt easy by comparison. I think I needed that boundary-breaking first baby. He made me more open, less selfish and more capable of meeting hardship.
Boundaries may protect us, but love transforms us and others.
Henry Cloud, author of the bestselling “Boundaries,” has said, “Those who can’t respect our boundaries are telling us that they don’t love our nos. They only love our yeses, our compliance.”
But children do not operate within that logic. They ask, interrupt and depend without restraint. A mother is woken in the night by a sick child who does not care about her “no” and requires her full compliance. And yet, Fyodor Dostoevsky might argue that it is precisely these moments of sacrifice that prove the enduring love of a mother.
My needy newborn is now a capable 17-year-old, and our relationship, once defined by constant need, has matured into one grounded in mutual respect.
The love revealed in motherhood and its ability to enlarge our capacity suggests that we may not need as many protections as we imagine. Relationships that ask a lot of us are also often the deepest and which give back the most.
I often find myself leaning toward protection over presence. But I also know the world feels warmer when I choose, like Lindsay did, to move toward others, even when it’s inconvenient.
All women are capable of a love that is truly transformative; let’s not allow our pursuit of protection to turn our warmth into distance.