Your general statements are true. Perhaps I should give a somewhat specific example. Liz, despite not being able to stand such behavior in her mother, whom she nicknamed the Controller, meddles and makes unfair demands sometimes and buts into the kids' affairs. So, when she calls me and tells me to make my son invite his 2 yrs older sister to dinner with his friends because she doesn't have plans, when he was already out on his plans and refused her demand to do so or come home, and I hear his side of the story, my ego has nothing to do with it. That's the type of balance bean to which I referred.