The Evolution of Man -- or one man, at least
So, my father kept pushing me to tell him the name of the musical I went to see on my birthday, and I kept stalling. After all, the musical was "The Book of Mormon" and this was my politically liberal, but behaviorally conservative, father. I finally said "Dad, I'm not sure I want to tell you, because ... well, you would probably be offended by some (ALL?) of it." To which HE replies, "Oh, you might be surprised ... I'm not offended by much of anything anymore." So, I told him, and his reply was "I was considering going, because I'd heard it was good."
O.O
That was actually only the first of several surprising comments during that phone call. One much later was more telling. As we discussed Thanksgiving, and I tried to explain to him why I would probably not accept anymore invitations to go "home" to South Carolina for the traditional family gathering, I mentioned how I was finding it very difficult to hold my tongue around some of them. Like my aunt, whom I ended up un-friending (de-friending?) on Facebook, because she and I were getting into an argument about her homophobic comments, and I was having difficulty remaining civil. I finally decided to remove her from my feed, rather than subjecting myself to her hateful spew.
I was a little bit nervous about saying some of this to my father, since our turnaround from 5-6 years ago (when he disowned me for calling him on some things HE said) has been tenuous at times. He got really quiet for a minute, and then he said "Sometimes, you just have to say what needs to be said. Sometimes, you just need to speak your truth, and hopefully, even if they don't seem to listen to you in that moment, they will think about what you said later, and it will make a difference."
Wow. Just wow, Dad.
O.O
That was actually only the first of several surprising comments during that phone call. One much later was more telling. As we discussed Thanksgiving, and I tried to explain to him why I would probably not accept anymore invitations to go "home" to South Carolina for the traditional family gathering, I mentioned how I was finding it very difficult to hold my tongue around some of them. Like my aunt, whom I ended up un-friending (de-friending?) on Facebook, because she and I were getting into an argument about her homophobic comments, and I was having difficulty remaining civil. I finally decided to remove her from my feed, rather than subjecting myself to her hateful spew.
I was a little bit nervous about saying some of this to my father, since our turnaround from 5-6 years ago (when he disowned me for calling him on some things HE said) has been tenuous at times. He got really quiet for a minute, and then he said "Sometimes, you just have to say what needs to be said. Sometimes, you just need to speak your truth, and hopefully, even if they don't seem to listen to you in that moment, they will think about what you said later, and it will make a difference."
Wow. Just wow, Dad.