Why it’s sometimes hard to talk to my parents
Lemme preface this by saying that I really do respect my parents. I don’t usually have trouble talking to them, and they do a lot for me, which I really appreciate.
But I don’t know, I think there’s a difference in social standards that I should write down here.
Carter Mountain
A few weeks ago my family went to Carter Mountain with another family friend and her boyfriend. (not during Sunset Series, so there were less people around). It’s pretty, so people like to take pictures there.
We sit down at a picnic table and the two others leave to grab drinks. A few minutes later my mom gets asked by passerby’s if she could take their picture. She says something along the lines of “I can’t” and asks my dad if I can take it. My dad then proceeds to say, “Sure!” THEN turns to ME and asks me if I can take it.
And at that point I turn around in disbelief and my mom ends up taking the picture. Of course, I feel bad for the people who asked and had to see me do that. Some other people came by and asked for the same thing later, and that time I was fine taking their picture.
Right after I immediately criticize my dad for this, because from my perspective he bait-and-switched me by making me think he had it handled when he actually was going to offload the task to me.
His rationale was that we’re a collective, and we should be looking out for each other or something… But he never really acknowledged my point of view, and by that time our other friends had returned, so that was the end of that.
Listening for Emergency Vehicles
Weeks later, the whole family is home for Fall Break and that’s all and well. On one specific day I’m in the car sitting the backseat with my dad driving. I was watching a MKWii YouTube short when we hear ambulance noises. I’m exhausted after a long day, so I decide that it’s not worth my attention.
After a bit my dad notices, and tells me that because I didn’t raise my head and start looking around to see where the noise was coming from, I wasn’t being an attentive person. My sister was looking around though.
I tell him that I’d do that if I was in the driver’s seat (or the passenger’s seat). But that really got me thinking about the whole situation I described above at Carter Mountain, that we should all be looking out for each other. So I did end up telling him that maybe I should be paying attention.
But at the same time, do I really have that obligation? I’m tired. I’m sitting in the back of the car and don’t have any control over the car. And nothing consequential would have changed even if I did get up and start looking.
I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer. What I do think is that my parents see the fact that I didn’t choose to do that as a lack of respect, a lack of devotion to the family. Which is fair! But I think they aren’t really considering how I feel, and why I make the choices I make.
I think there’s a clash between the fact that my parents expect me to do certain things that benefit us as a collective, and the fact that I want to be treated with respect to how I feel individually. And this is something I don’t think is possible or worth time trying to resolve. Because every time I do try to bring up my perspective it’s immediately shut down.
I do think this has been hampering on my ability to engage in conversation with them. I was asked by my mom why I was being so rude with them, which I thought was because I was not in a good mood (because I really hate wet, bare floors when it’s raining - just a pet peeve of mine!) But it could just be because of sour experiences like these.
I can either stand my ground, state how I feel, and risk burning everything; or give in and try to be better and more patient. And I’m definitely going with the second one; the first one is not an option. But I think it’s a real challenge, considering my parents grew up on the other side of the world, and I grew up in the highly individualist society of the United States. I don’t think anyone’s at fault. It just sucks.