Joel Richard Posted September 8, 2015 Posted September 8, 2015 I was having one of my monthly visits with my parents and siblings and as has become the norm I was having political discussions with my Father. He started voicing concerns over my beliefs in Anarchism. He is not the best communicator so I eventually came to think he was telling me to shut up about my Anarchism or go away. I was distressed to learn this and over the weekend once the discussion came up again it took a turn for the worse and I was packing my things to leave forever. It was pretty dramatic and unusual for any sort of family gathering of ours. Only my crying mother made be stay and resolve the issue and my father and I managed to fix our differences while greatly improving the honesty between us. Thinking about this brings me to tears everytime. My family has always been so dawm stoic about things so feelings never get discussed or heard of. I just can't wait until all my relationships are done being violently transformed by my transition into Anachism and Atheism. It got pretty rough but I made it and am happier for it. I just wanted to share this with those who have or will have gone through this. Not all families intolerant. Joel 3
jpahmad Posted September 8, 2015 Posted September 8, 2015 Good job working through it Joel. I'm happy for you. The older generation is not going to abandon their ideologies without making a stink about it. Just keep things in perspective and focus mostly on the younger generations. Honestly, this statement won't be popular on this forum, but most parents don't know any better.
J. D. Stembal Posted September 8, 2015 Posted September 8, 2015 Do you feel as though your mother manipulates with emotions? 1
TheSchoolofAthens Posted September 8, 2015 Posted September 8, 2015 I applaud your honesty with your family and I do hope it goes well in the future. I am curious to know how it goes, so please update us here! I've had many discussions with my family about free markets, anarchism - hell just rationality - and they like to avoid it. When they can't avoid it, they will be assholes about it. Honesty is critical in relationships, and then after everyone can be honest comes the second part: values. I find it not possible to have a relationship with my family when they'd like me to go to jail if I were ever to evade being stolen from via taxation. It is like having a relationship with an islamic terrorist who despises my atheism and westernized ways. My family may not be islamic terrorirsts, but they do despise my rationality and actually support groups of people who would do me harm. So, I can't really have a relationship with that. I don't want to sound like a debbie downer, as if what you've done is nothing of importance - because that is far from true. What you've done is very important. You've let your family know what your honest beliefs are, you didn't conform, and that is incredibly challenging to do. The question now is, will they evade, oppose, or accept rationality? That will determine the future of your relationship with them.
Joel Richard Posted September 9, 2015 Author Posted September 9, 2015 Do you feel as though your mother manipulates with emotions? I don't think so. She is much more open to my opinions than my father is. I certainly never intended to tell them I was an Atheist. It was in the heat of the moment but I'm happy I did it. I still respect their belief in God since the religion they taught me was open to reason and ignored most of the stupid stuff. I however did not excuse their belief in statism and that in my eyes this makes them guilty of a great crime and it hurts me to know it.
J. D. Stembal Posted September 9, 2015 Posted September 9, 2015 Religion and statism are the same belief that people are too stupid to voluntarily associate based of their preferences.I had a related experience with my father before I deFOOed.We would talk about public school since my brother and sister both current attend, and he would gripe about the teachers and all the homework they piled on in elementary school. I suggested that government was force and they schooling should be a matter of free market, and I got the "I used to think like you" speech, and "How naive you are!" comments. It's really frustrating.
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