Politics and family....
This is something that has bothered me for YEARS; for as long as I have had a political opinion, it has been in opposition with the opinions of my parents and my sister. That by itself would not be such a bad thing, if I felt that my family had any respect for my views. Instead, my conservative viewpoint has been derided in turns as "youthful rebellion," not knowing any better, stubbornness, foolishness, etc. Look - no one has to agree with me if they don't feel I am right. I don't really care. My sister is a fairly radical liberal and I love her to pieces. I think she's wrong most of the time, but I wouldn't put her down because of how she feels and what she thinks. Realistically we're all pretty damn small cogs in the wheel - if you think differently than I do, fine. That's how democracy works - you have your opinion, I have mine, we settle it in reasoned debate and public elections for people and issues. We don't settle it by belittling or dismissing the thoughts and opinions of others, especially family.
I'm basically just ranting here, but I was just recently home and there was, right in the middle of Passover seder, a sideways remark from my father regarding one of the members of the current administration. Here I am sitting at the table with an orange on the seder plate to represent that lesbians aren't given room to fit into judaism, with a haggadah telling me that Jews must be pacifists to be good Jews (a policy which, if all Jews actually followed, would ensure the rapid demise of the Jewish population of the world), and now thrown in nasty remarks about a political figure I happen to respect. I felt I belonged with these people at at that table about as much as mayonaise goes with peanut butter. And this is my family, sitting together celebrating that we are together on this holiday.
Maybe it's unavoidable - maybe it's impossible for a conservative daughter to belong with liberal parents and a liberal sister. Maybe i'll just never really fit in...
That's pretty fucking depressing.
I'm basically just ranting here, but I was just recently home and there was, right in the middle of Passover seder, a sideways remark from my father regarding one of the members of the current administration. Here I am sitting at the table with an orange on the seder plate to represent that lesbians aren't given room to fit into judaism, with a haggadah telling me that Jews must be pacifists to be good Jews (a policy which, if all Jews actually followed, would ensure the rapid demise of the Jewish population of the world), and now thrown in nasty remarks about a political figure I happen to respect. I felt I belonged with these people at at that table about as much as mayonaise goes with peanut butter. And this is my family, sitting together celebrating that we are together on this holiday.
Maybe it's unavoidable - maybe it's impossible for a conservative daughter to belong with liberal parents and a liberal sister. Maybe i'll just never really fit in...
That's pretty fucking depressing.