People are pretty forgiving when it comes to other people’s families. The only family that ever horrifies you is your own.

Coupland’s line captures a common asymmetry in how we judge family life: other people’s domestic dysfunctions can seem merely “interesting,” explainable, or even forgivable from a distance, while our own family’s flaws feel uniquely exposing. The quote points to intimacy as the source of horror—because family is where identity is formed, where private histories accumulate, and where we cannot easily adopt the detached, charitable perspective we extend to others. It also suggests that shame and self-knowledge intensify moral judgment: what we can excuse in strangers becomes unbearable when it implicates us, our origins, and the narratives we tell about ourselves.