Marjorie Ingall - Sorry, Sorry, Sorry : The Case for Good Apologies

Funny, uncompromising, and unapologetic. A timely guide to a moral future.

Harriet Lerner, PhD, author of Why Wont You Apologize?

Sorry, Sorry, Sorry

The Case for Good Apologies

Marjorie Ingall and Susan McCarthy

An Imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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Copyright 2023 by Marjorie Ingall and Susan McCarthy

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First Gallery Books hardcover edition January 2023

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Interior design by Davina Mock-Maniscalco

Jacket design by Philip Pascuzzo

Author photo of Marjorie Ingall Deborah Copaken

Author photo of Susan McCarthy Jennifer Hale

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Ingall, Marjorie, author.

Title: Sorry, sorry, sorry : the case for good apologies / Marjorie Ingall and Susan McCarthy.

Description: First Gallery Books hardcover edition. | New York, NY : Gallery Books, [2023]

Identifiers: LCCN 2022020890 (print) | LCCN 2022020891 (ebook) | ISBN 9781982163495 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781982163518 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Apologizing.

Classification: LCC BF575.A75 I46 2023 (print) | LCC BF575.A75 (ebook) | DDC 158.2dc23/eng/20220624

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022020890

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022020891

ISBN 978-1-9821-6349-5

ISBN 978-1-9821-6351-8 (ebook)

For Jonathan, Josie, and Max

MI

For Daniel, Joseph, Kitty and Nic Jay, and Asa Bea

SMcC

Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.

James Baldwin

Apologies are evidence of a society that cares about itself, a society that honors other peoples experiences, thoughts, and feelings as precious. In tiny ways and larger ones, apologies move us toward justice.

Sounds lofty, we know. But, truly, apologies civilize us. In our day-to-day dealings and in the wider social sphere, they make things better. Its human nature to sometimes disappoint or betray others, but saying youre sorryand doing it wellhas the near-miraculous, superheroic power to heal.

These are trying times. Thats a clich for a reasonall times try our souls, a necessary condition of living. But can we acknowledge that these timeswhat with their bitter partisan divides, climate-based disasters, widening economic gulf between haves and have-nots, collective attempts to wrestle or refuse to wrestle with historic injusticeare particularly difficult? We need all the strategies we can get to make our way through and make things better. Good apologies are one of the tools we could all be deploying more. Well show you how. And when you start apologizing welland learn to elicit and accept good apologiesyoull become a better friend, a better family member, a better coworker, and a better world citizen. Widespread adoption of good apologies can make the world a better place to live in.

No lie: apologies are wonderful, vital things.

Unless theyre done very badly, in which case theyre hideously ugly, catastrophic, messy things.

We were about to compare apology to a double-edged sword, but forget that metaphor: How many of us ever get around to swordplay these days? (So busy.) Lets instead think of saying youre sorry as superglue. Its amazing stuff, but if you use it wrong, you can wreak all kinds of destruction. Have you ever received a bad apology, one that made you say, Okay, I was mad before, but now Im really mad!? Maybe it was a Sorry if you took my suggestion the wrong way apology, or a Sorry, I didnt realize you were so sensitive apology, or a Sorry, but you always apology. The person apologizing to you has just glued their finger to their nose. Metaphorically.

The two of us, Marjorie Ingall and Susan McCarthy, have been studying and analyzing apologies in the news, pop culture, literature, and politics since 2012 on our website, SorryWatch.com. In pursuit of education, enlightenment, and entertainment, we have waded through so many of the worst apologies that we had to make up Bad Apology Bingo cards in an attempt to keep ourselves calm. Happily, weve also written about quite a few lovely apologies, the ones that make things better. By studying all those apologies and figuring out what went wrong or right, we came up with the golden rules for apology. Technically speaking, apologies are easy! We can teach you how to apologize beautifully in six simple steps. And we will! You do not need to download an app. You do not need a special screwdriver. A child can apologize well, if they choose to.

Yet apologizing well is agonizingly difficult for many (most?) grown-ups. Well talk about why that is and how to succeed nevertheless.

Both of us are longtime journalists and authors. Susan writes a lot about wildlife and animal behavior; Marjorie writes a lot about books and Jewish stuff. Marjorie didnt really start paying attention to apologies until her first child went to nursery school. Little Josie, a fierce toddler, spent the better part of that year in the Consequences Chair. Marjorie felt like she was constantly apologizing for her kids biting, hitting, yelling, non-sharing. This prompted a lot of thought about how one teaches kids to apologize. (See chapter 5, Im Sorry I Chased You with a Booger: Teaching Children to Apologize.) Especially because, after her time as an editor at Sassy, Marjorie was way too familiar with the phenomenon of teenage girls who apologize for everythingfor existing! For having opinions! Later, as a columnist at the Forward and then at Tablet, she learned that the subjects of apologies and of forgiveness (see chapter 8, How to Accept an Apology and How to Forgive and When to Do Neither) needed to be written about every single year at the High Holy Days. Thats when, among other things, Jews apologize and/or ask for forgiveness from those they have wronged in the previous year. (Were always delighted when people tell us that rabbis quote SorryWatch in their sermons.) She wound up writing about apology a lot.

Marjories friend Susan came at the subject more out of long-standing resentments about bad apologies shed gotten in relationships. (Lets not call them grudges, because well, okay, yeahgrudges.) Things like Im sorry if anything I did or said hurt you. Why are you still upset? I apologized! What else am I supposed to do? She also found herself surprisingly, deeply pleased when she got a belated apology from friends whod ghosted her in high school. It wasnt a perfect apology, yet it brought an astonishing sense of relief.