Now What? Hits Home
This year, our summer series centers around our new book, Now What?: How to Move Forward When We're Divided (About Basically Everything). We brought together groups of listeners who were on our book launch team to discuss how they’ve seen political conflict play out in their own lives. Over the next few weeks, we’ll share these conversations with you, along with some thoughts and strategies for how to navigate division in many different types of relationship.
Today, we’re focusing on families of origin: parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins. We bring deep histories to these relationships which can complicate our political divisions even further.
Thank you for being a part of our community! We couldn't do it we do without you. To become a financial supporter of the show, please visit our Patreon page, subscribe to our Premium content on Apple Podcasts Subscriptions, purchase a copy of our books Now What? How to Move Forward When We’re Divided (About Basically Everything) and I Think You're Wrong (But I'm Listening), or share the word about our work in your own circles.
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EPISODE RESOURCES
We can’t know everyone’s situation. But we do know that these organizations and many like them are waiting to serve you.
National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-SAFE (7233)
National Child Abuse Hotline: 1-800-4-A-CHILD (422-4453)
Family Violence Prevention Center: 1-800-313-1310
Families Anonymous: 1-800-736-9805
Gay and Lesbian National Hotline: 1-888-843-4564
Youth Crisis Hotline: 1-800-448-4663
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
The Trevor Project Hotline: 1-866-488-7386
These resources are all based in the United States. If you are outside of the United States, suicide.org will allow you to connect with hotlines in your country. Domesticshelters.org lists international resources to support domestic violence survivors.
TRANSCRIPT
Listener 3 [00:00:00] I didn't expect them to be, "Oh, yay, your child's trans. Let's have a party." I wasn't expecting that, but what I did expect was to figure it out together.
Sarah [00:00:17] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.
Beth [00:00:19] And this is Beth Silvers.
Sarah [00:00:20] Thank you for joining us for Pantsuit Politics. Welcome to the Pantsuit Politics Summer Series. Every year we use the month of July to take a break from our regularly scheduled programming to do a little something different. We take a deep dive in a way we can't do while we're chasing the headlines of the day. In previous years, this has been a pretty intellectual exercise. We cover the Federalist Papers, the Constitution. Last year, we talked about infrastructure. But this year, we're following the lead of our new book Now What How to Move Forward When We're Divided (About basically everything) and look at our relationships and connections to one another with more depth.
Beth [00:01:07] Now What, the book, has two parts. In this series, we're going to focus on part one: those closest to us. Part two of the book covers our relationships as people who share states and nations and the Internet and a planet. But in this series, we want to talk about the relationships in which we are physically present in our day to day lives. You don't need to have read the book to follow the series, but we hope that you have read it or that you will soon.
Sarah [00:01:31] And in the spirit of summer, we're going to dive right into the deep end with our closest family relationships and what political disagreement is doing to them. Now, we've talked about this in our own lives. I have shared on our show and in the book about my political conflicts with my father, who's on the opposite end of the political spectrum as me, but we wanted to invite others into the conversation. So what we did is we reached out to our community and we said, "Who is struggling with these issues and would you want to come and talk about it?"
Beth [00:01:59] These groups represent active, engaged listeners of our podcast. There are many experiences represented in our audience that are not represented in these calls. A glaring one is that you're only going to hear from women, and we have many beloved men and non-binary people in our community. We just didn't approach this as a journalistic exercise. We weren't trying to make sure that every demographic was covered because it is a brave and vulnerable thing to have your voice recorded talking about these intimate relationships in your lives. So we went with the people who volunteered and we really tried to explore what they're experiencing.
Sarah [00:02:34] Everyone you'll hear from in today's episode is experiencing some level of disconnect from their immediate or extended family members. You won't hear the details of all their stories, but they include a person whose siblings have cut her off since her child came out as trans, a person whose family won't mask or take a home test even if that's the boundary drawn to meet a new grandchild, and a person whose siblings were at the January 6th insurrection.
Beth [00:02:58] So, for some of you, these stories are going to connect in a way that hits pretty hard. And if you are experiencing something similar, we hope it's helpful to you to hear from others and know that you're not alone. We also hope that you'll listen in a gentle way as you go through this. We want to say to you that there are lots of ways to be in a family. These conversations are not meant to be prescriptive. We are not really even focusing on action items. In the book, we offer a lot of questions and language that we hope is helpful, but there's not a right answer. Our families aren't math problems. So we're just trying to shine a little light on what people are going through right now.
Sarah [00:03:34] And we're going to start with a segment of our conversation about family conflict right after the break. Can I read your comment?
Listener 1 [00:03:52] Me? Yes.
Sarah [00:03:53] So that everybody can gasp and cover their mouth like I did. My brother and sister in law, who attended the January 6th insurrection with a church group, declined to attend my other brother's October 2021 wedding because they were asked to wear masks or be vaccinated. You checked every box. Your bingo card is full.
Listener 1 [00:04:11] Their two sons, one of whom is my godson, I have made a point to call at least once a month and just talk with them. My nephew and the younger one asked me, "Aunt Beth, could ___ and I come visit you some time?" And we were like, "Yes, of course. Yes that'd be great. Come fly out here." They're both early twenties. And he said, "Okay, because I know that uncle ___ we can't." And I was like, why not? So uncle ___ is the one who got married. So they are still of the opinion that because that happened then that we don't want anything to do with them because they are unvaccinated and won't wear a mask. I said, "Well, that was then and it was New York." Andthey had just had a big flare up of Covid and they had gone back to mask mandates indoors and it wasn't an unreasonable ask, but yet they said we were uninvited because of our beliefs.
Sarah [00:05:18] So who has experience with that? With the narrative coming from the other family member is you are disconnecting from me. Does anybody else have that?
Listener 2 [00:05:27] We've had that experience. I had an eight month old when Covid started, and I have another baby that's now a month now into the pandemic and they're under five and can't be vaccinated.
Sarah [00:05:37] Bless you.
Listener 2 [00:05:37] Thank you. But we've had family members that feel really hurt and offended that we like-- and we feel like the asks have gotten smaller as we've gotten more tools. Initially, it was like, could you please quarantine? Now it's can you please take a home tests? And the answer is still no, but the perception is still that we're the ones that are unreasonable. And that's really hard.
Sarah [00:05:59] Yeah, that's skids to the expectation game I think that we talk a lot about in the book. We talk about it through generational eyes, but I think it's through lots of different levels. It's weird. It's like both people have this expectation and this perception that they are like the guest in this scenario. You know what I mean? Like, nobody wants to take responsibility as the host. Everybody's the wronged guest, which is kind of weird. But it makes sense [Crosstalk] I guess.
Listener 2 [00:06:28] And I think it's hard when you feel like that. For us it feels more personal because the stakes feel so disproportionate. I don't know if you feel this way, Beth, like the stakes if they wear a mask to your brother's wedding and they don't want to. That feels like a very low stakes.
Listener 1 [00:06:48] Yes.
Listener 2 [00:06:49] The stakes if they don't wear a mask and you want them to and they interact somewhere with Covid and that person gets seriously ill still feel very high. And that's the same way we feels. It's like the stakes for you to take a home test or to wear a mask feel very low, but the downside is that you do something you didn't want to do and you have to give up your anti-Covid identity for 15 minutes or whatever it is. But if that feels so high to them, I guess that the stake feels so high [Inaudible] But the risk, if we're right and you're wrong, is that you infect our newborn with Covid.
Listener 3 [00:07:24] Right. So my situation is complicated in many different ways and when it comes to stakes. There was a difference in political thought processes and beliefs and feelings when it came to the results of the election and Trump and the like. My family has become very evangelical and the church that I was attending with them supported Trump openly, hosted an event for him. And I was appalled by it, quite frankly. That began a just a very large divide where it appeared to be me versus them. And a lot of it had to do with the fact that I would educate myself on things, I would research, I would look up stuff. I'd want to have those conversations where they chose not to. They just kind of took the information from their certain resources and they saw that as me being intimidating to them because I would counter with something that they would say. I provide that background because when Covid happened, my husband has had asthma since he was a child. And so there was no question about the fact that when a vaccine came out, he was he was willing to be in the trials. And we so we all knew that we were going to be vaccinated. We talked to our children about it, who were teenagers at the time, and left it up to them, but presented them with the facts. My entire extended family that lives here in town with us, nobody is vaccinated. They have never vaccinated. My mom is 76-years-old. She refuses to vaccinate.
Sarah [00:09:20] So you're still talking to your mom?
Listener 3 [00:09:22] I'm still talking to my mom. I'm not speaking with my brother and sister, but that has less to do with Covid and more to do with my trans child coming out a year ago at 17.
Listener 1 [00:09:34] Is that a religious choice on their part?
Listener 3 [00:09:37] Yes, we were told that they wanted to keep their children innocent, that they didn't know how to explain this to their children, that they didn't think it was real. Through several months, conversations with my child, what they basically did was say that they would needed to separate themselves from us. And that also resulted in me going to my nephew's ballgame, I didn't go talk to my nephews. I was on the opposite side. I just wanted them to see me there and for me to see them for a few minutes. I didn't speak to anybody. I didn't go up and say anything. I just stood there at the game for like-- I didn't stay the whole time. And I received text messages from both my brother and sister saying that they did not want me to show up at my nephew's games, that it was disrespectful. I haven't seen my nephews in over a year. My sister lives a mile away and my brother lives three miles away and we are completely and totally estranged.
Beth [00:10:47] I'm so sorry. And that is so painful.
Sarah [00:10:49] And to have a trans child in Texas too, you're going through it.
Listener 3 [00:10:53] Yes. And that was part of it. We understood that there was hesitancy. This has been a journey for us. What we really were looking for was just, hey, we're family. We're going to be here for you. Let's figure out how we can deal with this. And the response that we got was, this is not of God. We can't be around this. Look, it's been over a year now. There's been a lot that's happened since then. But that estrangement, there's no communication at all between me and my siblings. I did send my sister a happy birthday text. I send a card with a gift to my nephews for their birthdays and for Christmas. They don't acknowledge my trans child. They acknowledge my oldest one and my younger one, but not the transgender.
Sarah [00:11:54] Oh, my gosh. Well, and I think that's it. What you just said, though, that's everybody's expectation because that's what we're told. Blood is thicker than water. And no matter what, the family is there for each other. That's our original group. That's our original tribe. And I think that's what makes this fracturing. So it's like not only the expectations within the relationship, it's the expectations we have of the relationship.
Listener 3 [00:12:18] And I think that that's it, too. And what spoke to me particularly, I read the first chapter again and if you had said to me 10 years ago that this is where I would be right now, I would have told you you were a liar and you had no idea what you're talking about. I mean, we've been through my father dying of cancer, my sister's young husband dying of glioblastoma. She moved down here with her young son. I mean, we have done life together. And,to me, this was just another aspect of life. But what I have seen happen, particularly since the radicalness of people's belief systems, what that's done is created this divide of black and white, right or wrong, yes or no. And there's no discussion anymore. It's either you either agree with me or you're absolutely wrong and I can't be around that. And that's what I don't understand. I didn't expect them to be, oh, yay, your child's trans let's have a party. I wasn't expecting that. But what I did expect was to figure it out together like we had done throughout all of life. And more and more what I see with them, but what I guess I'm also seeing in public, is that there is no finding that middle. Finding that common ground, building from the common ground does not seem to be what is preached in some of the churches or what is supported by certain groups of people and society. It's enemy versus...
Listener 2 [00:14:01] Friend or foe.
Listener 3 [00:14:02] Yeah, exactly.
Beth [00:14:05] Jill, is that the journey that you've seen? You described your parents as starting as like Trump as the lesser of two evils and then getting in pretty deep. Do you think it is this kind of radicalization that we were just talking about or that camp of like you're with us or against us and so there isn't much more to talk about?
Listener 2 [00:14:25] Yeah. I'm not estranged from anyone in my family, so I haven't felt like some of the black and white relationship nonstarters or enders that some people are describing. I live in Orange County. I was raised here. So I'm in California, but I'm pretty conservative. Though it's turning more blue, but still pretty conservative area. So I was raised evangelical and very politically conservative. And I would say like the last 10 years or so, my husband and I have moved further left. Beth, your journey I really have resonated with. It's part of what drew me to party politics. So I would say 2016, my parents-- I mean, they've always voted Republican. 2016, they both voted Trump. And I remember them not being thrilled he was the nominee, but they hated Hillary Clinton and so that was just what they did. And I have been shocked as the years have gone on to watch them just go down this rabbit hole. Of, like, as the years have gone on and I have been more horrified by Trump, it's like--
Sarah [00:15:44] It's like direct correlation.
Listener 2 [00:15:46] Yeah. And my dad got the MAGA hat and the Trump glasses in the house. And then Covid hits. And my husband's an elementary school teacher. We have two kids in elementary school. So we still saw my parents here and there later into 2020. But they'd not us. They were not going to isolate. They were not going to do anything that would make us feel more comfortable. So we just had to kind of acquiesce to the way they were living.
Sarah [00:16:19] So I did notice, Rachel, you were nodding passionately.
Listener 2 [00:16:24] It was the progression for me. My parents were also not thrilled in 2016 when he was the nominee and the progression of like my mom would never let us talk about politics in the house. Like, she wasn't into it. She would leave the room if the news was on and politics was the topic. And to go from that to like even her commenting on news in air quotes because it's not news. There's just been like sci fi moment in my mind of like how did we get here?
Listener 3 [00:17:01] And I think I don't know how old you are, Rachel. I'm in my mid thirties and I think it's also a season of like as you have your own kids-- my kids are five and seven-- and starting to see your parents in a different way as a parent yourself. And I feel like that sort of a process. So like learning things about my mom as a mother myself alongside seeing her really change a lot has been definitely one of the most shocking experiences of my life and just trying to like recalibrate I of course want to have a relationship with her. And I love her. And I'm thankful for I still, like I said, there's no estrangement, but it's been shocking.
Beth [00:17:46] I love that you said that about how being a mom yourself is changing your expectations. As we were writing the book, I thought a lot about how being a mom has in some ways made me look at my parents with so much more grace and forgiveness. Like, oh, of course you didn't know how to do this, or of course it felt like that or whatever. And at the same time, my expectations about the relationship I have with them as an adult are a lot higher as a result of being a mom. Because I look at my two and I can't imagine not being in it with them for everything always. And that made me think about your situation, Taylor, because I also had this vision of in-laws where I thought that was going to be a really magical relationship.
Listener 2 [00:18:37] Where did you get that impression from, Beth?
Beth [00:18:40] I don't know, but I just felt like it was going to be-- look, I think there's probably some arrogance in it because I think I'm easy to be in relationship with. I'm delightful. Surely they will be, too. It's going to be fine. And we don't have conflicts overtly, probably because we don't live in the same area. But I think we would have a lot of conflict if we lived close by. And I would love to hear about what your expectations for that relationship were, Taylor, and what the reality has been.
Listener 4 [00:19:10] So my husband and I have been together since we were in high school. And his parents have always been pretty like we don't vote party. They would vote for whoever they felt was best at the time. I never heard them talk about politics. My husband and I have been together almost 17 years. We're high school sweethearts and 2016 everything started to flip. And we are originally from Ohio. We live in eastern Kentucky now. My husband's a pastor. And so the distance-- I don't know if it's maybe made it a little easier, but I'm very opinionated. And my father in law is incredibly opinionated, but we are on two separate end of the spectrum. And my mother in law doesn't say a lot. Like other people have said, she doesn't like to talk politics. If the news is on, she turns it off. She doesn't want to be informed. Now that didn't really play into Covid because we had a baby in 2020. My son is almost two and so luckily, like they kind of knew I think that we would let them see him if they didn't get vaccinated, wear masks and everything. And my mother in law was on the terrified to get Covid side. So luckily she had that fear. And so they got vaccinated, they wore masks, they did all of that. But my father in law, he is incredibly big on Trump.
Sarah [00:20:46] But he got the mask and the vaccine?
Listener 4 [00:20:47] Yes.
Sarah [00:20:49] Interesting.
Listener 4 [00:20:50] Probably because my mother in law made him.
Sarah [00:20:52] I mean, tramp got the vaccine. It's not like Trump was anti vax.
Listener 4 [00:20:55] Right. Yes.
Sarah [00:20:57] Well that progression to me, it reminds me about Johnny Depp. Follow me here. Where people feel like they've gotten something back. And it was going from like, well, I just vote for the candidate and I just stay neutral and I don't... And now they can just unabashedly root for something. And it's like I think they were really, really, hungry for that. They wanted to be unabashedly pro something. Because, I mean, if you think about especially like our in-laws or our parents generation, they're baby boomers. But you're talking about the seventies, Watergate, Vietnam. They didn't have a conscious adult memory being able to be like, yes, go for something. I mean, Reagan in the Cold War a little bit. But I don't know.
Listener 3 [00:21:41] It's interesting that you say that because that's exactly what it feels like, is that when Trump was elected, it was almost like it gave permission for all of the non politically correct thought processes, belief systems and values. All of a sudden this one person got up there and stated all that and it became okay and that by supporting him, you're showing that you're against the overt political correctness. And I think that that's where that progression came from. It was almost as if like when Obama was in office, too many people saw him as a complete opposite of what we've seen in history. And I think part of it had to do with the fact he was the first African-American to become president. He was young. The last really young president was Kennedy. You know, here was a young man with a young family and a wife who was intelligent and they didn't represent the picture that so many people had in their minds of what America and the presidency look like. This was a turning point. And that progression allowed Trump and people who are like him to take all of those bad, negative, judgmental thought processes and they were given a voice. And then it became okay.
Beth [00:23:17] Anyone can take this question, like, did you notice that your family members were suffering under the weight of all that political correctness during the Obama years? Or did Trump create the disease and diagnose it retroactively?
Sarah [00:23:31] I'm sure some of y'all's families were mad during Obama for sure, right?
Listener 1 [00:23:35] People said that he was the author of Division. That Barack Obama brought all the division.
Sarah [00:23:42] Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's definitely a narrative for sure.
Listener 2 [00:23:44] I think, too, it didn't end after when Trump was in office. Because I've been thinking a lot about what you said back on the Bible Binge and on More to Say about how the persecution might be the point, like, the being the underdog might be the point because that's the thread that I see throughout. Like, even my family members that I disagree with on politics and many of them are evangelicals, and there's like this narrative of of being persecuted. Even outside of the religious sphere, I think just that sense of like we are the underdog. People like to be the underdogs and feel like they're winning.
Sarah [00:24:18] I just had an aha moment. If you want to be persecuted and you want to be the underdog, what is better proof than that you have turned from your family or your family has turned from you? That's like nothing's more persecuted than somebody who they won't even let me see my grandbaby. That's like peak persecution. If you can bring the family into it, then that is like gold standard persecution. You're a true patriot. You're a true soldier because you're willing to sacrifice these relationships.
Listener 2 [00:24:53] Exactly.
Sarah [00:25:10] As we process these conversations, the first thing we want you to know is that they weren't supposed to be about Covid, but it came up over and over and over again. And this conversation about family and the conversation about friends and the conversation about church, it was an ever present part of these conversations.
Beth [00:25:30] We really didn't set up what it was supposed to be about other than the conflict that you're experiencing. And so, in a way, it wasn't surprising that Covid is now almost a foundation of a lot of that family conflict and that Covid has been just this ever present background for our lives through the summer in which we had a racial reckoning in the country that continues in many ways and through the presidential election. As Sarah said, Covid just would not get out of these discussions the way it will not get out of our day to day. And I think we cannot overestimate the hurt that people are carrying around and how personally they took it when family members were critical of their approaches to Covid or just outright refused to meet people in the middle on it or to meet people where they were on it.
Sarah [00:26:27] I think, paradoxically, my biggest takeaway was as much as this new, arguably temporary reality plays such a part in this conflict, a lot of what's underneath the conflict is more permanent and more reflective of long family histories and expectations. I think my biggest aha moment came when I realized like, oh, so much of this is really about status and it's really about a type of power inside the family. You know, you wrote in the book about the different ways you and your sister Kimberly had learned about conflict, and the sibling segment was super impactful. It came up over and over in our launch group. And what I realized in this conversation is that's what people I think connected to with the sibling conversation. And I think that is this thread running through a lot of this particularly Covid conflict. So it's touching on something much deeper, obviously, than how we're dealing with conflict right now. It's this sense of you're asking for a power shift, you're asking for a change in status, a change in dynamic. All of a sudden my child is asking me or telling me as a parent what I'm supposed to do. And I think in the best of circumstances, those power dynamic changes are stressful. That's why weddings are stressful because all of a sudden the power dynamic has shifted a little bit. That's why births are stressful inside of a family because it shifts that power dynamic. And I think Covid and our politics and our conflict surrounding politics push on those power dynamics even more. Oh, well, you're my kid and you're telling me to wear a mask? Or you're my big sister and I'm an adult now, and I don't want you to tell me what to do, including to get vaccinated. And so I think Covid, just because we were asking things of each other, it really, really, put pressure on those dynamics, that status that so often goes completely unarticulated inside a family.
Beth [00:28:38] And I also think that because there are more conversations about status and influence and media, that our family members are less inclined to take us at our word that something is really important to us. They think that we are doing things, are making decisions because of status among people outside the family. Well, you only say this because you think it's popular with this group of people. Or you only think this way because this is the show that you watch or the pundit that you listen to. And so we're all kind of layering on to each other what we think are inappropriate forces that are leading us to a conclusion instead of accepting maybe this person in front of me, my child, my sister, my uncle, my parent, maybe this person is also an autonomous human who has come to this conclusion in a genuine, sincere, thoughtful way. And whether they have or they haven't, it's difficult to enter into good faith navigation of conflict unless we accept each other on those terms.
Sarah [00:29:51] Well, and I think asking people to accept each other at face value inside a family it's difficult, if not impossible, especially outside of like a family therapy situation. We are bringing so much to the table. We are bringing that history. We are bringing our own personal interpretation of that history. We're bringing the choices we make inside our own immediate families once we've left our parents homes. We are bringing our expectations, like culturally, about what a mother daughter relationship should look like, what a sibling relationship should look like. I mean, it's just this giant -- when we're speaking we use the metaphor of a backpack, like we're all carrying these backpacks. And the backpacks we bring when to our family members, especially if there hasn't been a real articulated value set around what conflict will look like, what healthy conflict will look like and we're just running on instinct interviews without anybody really clearly articulating how they're feeling. I mean, it's a power kick. I don't think it's surprising that people are hurting so much. I don't think it's surprising that this was the hardest chapter in our book to write and that we rewrote it like five times. I just think that this is the manifestation of all the most difficult, complicated parts of being in relationship with other humans.
Beth [00:31:13] And it's hard. We're not even doing a lot of this consciously. Like your memories frees a person in time. I've been thinking about Ellen celebrated her birthday, my daughter, in June. She's seven and she loves pigs right now. And so she got all this pig stuff. And I keep telling myself every time I do something with the pigs, hey, let Ellen outgrow this. Because she will. And there will be people in her life who are still giving her pigs because this is the moment that their brain has grabbed on to about her. I've done that to so many people in my family and had it done to me. And it feels hard when you become someone's Polaroid instead of like this embodied person with lots of life experience they don't see. And Covid made that so much worse because what we could see of each other was very, very, limited.
Sarah [00:31:58] So now what? Being estranged from your family it's just the worst thing that we could imagine. But it's this thing that's like anti this whole narrative we tell ourselves about the family. But really, if your identity is more and more about you being this persecuted underdog, this persecuted minority and that's taking precedence in your identity, then, yeah, that's going to feed that. That's going to add fuel to your fire stones in that wall about who you really are and what you're really willing to do. Rachel, I thought your comments about your cousins were really interesting because then you don't have a generational conflict. Yeah. Like, you're all the same age. And so it's sort of like what we talk about in the book with siblings. Like, how could we have gotten here if we grew up together? Like, how did we end up in such different places?
Listener 2 [00:32:55] Just to give a little backstory. There are six original cousins. We are all like within a year and a half apart. So all very tight. So when we were all old enough to have cell phones and be in a group text, it was like this really like fun memories and just funny things that happen. Checking in about our days and now it stopped being about babies and puppies and moving states, countries, etc. And two family members try to be like, oh, I'm buying gas and thanks Biden and for the gas prices. I'm like the president doesn't control gas prices. And there's no arguing and it's not the place to engage. But privately I've been like, if you want to have like a real conversation I'm happy to do that. But that's not the motive.
Sarah [00:33:50] When people do that in a group text or a place where they know there are family members who don't agree with them, I just want to like psychologically dissect why they do that. Like, what are you doing? You know how I feel. Do you think the means is going to convince me?
Listener 2 [00:34:08] Yeah, my dad-- well, it started with emails that I-- this is back starting like 2019, it just ramped up with the election and then Covid. I mean, everything. Sometimes it was Facebook threads, sometimes it was Dennis Prager.
Beth [00:34:22] Prager you the ]Crosstalk]
Listener 2 [00:34:23] Yeah. So sometimes and they're like [Inaudible]. Like, he was so known in my family. He was sending them to me and I was like, dad, stop, please stop. Blocked him for a while. Then he started texting and I probably like seven times had to be like, dad... And finally I just said like, dad you are damaging our relationship.
Beth [00:34:47] Good for you.
Listener 2 [00:34:48] You know I'm happy to, like, have this conversation with you in a fair way, but I've asked you to stop. And to him conflict feels like relating. It feels comfortable and safe and almost like a form of love. Like, if we're able to go at it, he feels a connection. It does not feel that way to me. And so anyways, I just...
Listener 1 [00:35:12] It's like chapter one of the book where talked about the car ride.
Sarah [00:35:17] Yeah.
Listener 1 [00:35:18] And how Beth said you were okay with holding that tension. He doesn't want that tension, so there's just kind of conversational interpersonal style is part of it, too. I feel like I don't want to just be sitting here and be bemoaning. I want to be no what, I want to be figuring out how do we navigate this. And so I'm trying to keep conversation lines open, but it's just so awkward.
Sarah [00:35:53] That's exactly it. To just keep showing up, to just keep saying, "I'm here. I love you."
Listener 2 [00:36:03] Do you have any suggestions as you think about like like holding those lines open, so you're not a estranged, you just have differences that are challenging in that moment? To be honest, I think it's hard to me and maybe because I'm an Enneagram eight without feeling like I'm like capitulating to what they want. Or like going so far and feeling like I'm the only one, or like we're the only ones, and we still set boundaries. And like, for example, we went to a family event because we set our own limits around like if cases are low, we'll feel comfortable that the risk is low enough that we'll go because we know there's going to be no other mitigation measures in place. But it just feels a little bit challenging for me to understand the line between like keeping those-- like doing what we can to like maintain a good relationship, especially things that feel more seasonal like over disagreements. I mean, it felt more seasonal. Hopefully it will end someday, but without feeling like we're compromising things that are really important or feeling like we're giving up something. Well for holding boundaries, I guess, like being able to-- I guess the way I want to say that is being able to keep the lines open while still maintaining like appropriate boundaries and communicating that certain behaviors aren't okay with us.
Beth [00:37:25] I feel like I hear a lot of healthy versions of that inTaylor's comments. Like, it sounds really healthy to me to hear "My mother in law made me get vaccinated." Great. Wonderful. That's how family is supposed to work, right? Sometimes somebody just steps up and says, "This is what we're going to be doing now." Or says, "You're an idiot. Why are you talking like this?" I think that's how a family should feel, you know what I mean? Because you have a lightness about it when you're able to say that to each other. It's the the shutting down and the backing away and the disconnection what isn't said where I think all of the toxicity can really develop.
Sarah [00:38:01] Well, and also I think family is an incredibly powerful bond. It is important to me in my life. And also you can't love somebody into self-awareness. All the family love in the world is not going to give that level of awareness about the interactions and what's happening in relationships. Like, it's just not. And so I think there's a certain acceptance of like, okay, well this person's in my family and I'm going to accept them the way they are and maybe one day they'll wake up and go to therapy. Probably not. That's it, right? It's like, are we going to accept the foibles? How damaging are they? How painful are they? How much can we maneuver around them? How much does my own self-awareness and sort of reflection and seeing clearly what's going on here, like, give me the tools and the energy and the motivation to get through it. And how much do I need thereby in. I keep thinking-- I don't even always find the song. But the latest Adele single, the single she put out with her new album. And she has that refrain where she says, "I had the best of intentions and the highest hope. And it probably didn't even show." You know, that part was she sings and she's just like belting at the top of her voice. I had the highest hopes. I had the best of intentions and it probably doesn't even show. And I think, man, we should sing that to ourselves every morning as we come out of this pandemic and we should sing it as we go into every interaction with every person. Like, I had the highest of hopes and the best of intentions and it probably didn't even show. It's like a human refrain. And I think that no place is that truer than within our families.
[00:39:51] [Music: Go Easy on Me by Adele]
[00:40:19] So as I said at the opening, this is a conversational exploration and we hope that you have felt seen or heard or slightly less alone by listening to other people's experiences.
Beth [00:40:28] Of course. There are moments, as you heard from some of our participants, when stepping away is necessary for our mental health or our physical safety. We devote a whole section of the book to resources for toxic relationships, especially when abuse is present. We're going to share those resources in our show notes and we really want to say clearly, we are not telling you to stay in every relationship in your life. We are not telling you that working on yourself and your people is always your work to do. Sometimes it's not. And being really clear for yourself about where you are safe and where you are not safe matters to us. And we hope that if you need help and professionals and resources that you'll get connected.
Sarah [00:41:15] Thank you is not a big enough set of words for the listeners who participated in this conversation. We are eternally grateful that they volunteered to be so vulnerable and open hearted and empathetic with us and with each other and to share these conversations with all of you. Thank you so much to everyone who participated in this call. Next up in our Summer Series, we are going to be talking about the other two groups of people we are closest to in our lives: our partners and our friends.
Beth [00:41:54] Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alice Napp is our managing director.
Sarah [00:41:59] Maggie Penton is our community engagement manager. Dante Lima is the composer and performer of our theme music.
Beth [00:42:05] Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers.
Executive Producers (Read their own names) [00:42:09] Martha Bronitsky. Linda Daniel. Ali Edwards. Janice Elliott. Sarah Greenup. Julie Haller. Helen Handley. Tiffany Hassler. Emily Holladay. Katie Johnson. Katina Zuganelis Kasling. Barry Kaufman. Molly Kohrs.
[00:42:28] The Kriebs. Laurie LaDow. Lilly McClure. Emily Neesley. The Pentons. Tawni Peterson. Tracey Puthoff. Sarah Ralph. Jeremy Sequoia. Katie Stigers. Karen True. Onica Ulveling. Nick and Alysa Vilelli. Katherine Vollmer. Amy Whited.
Beth [00:42:46] Jeff Davis. Melinda Johnston. Ashley Thompson. Michelle Wood. Joshua Allen. Morgan McHugh. Nicole Berklas. Paula Bremer, and Tim Miller.