Arguing with Respect

My grandmother and I have never been as close as we both would like, and I believe that this was due to the distance between our homes fro so many years. She has always lived up north and I lived in the south, up until three years ago when my family moved here to Crawfordsville.
My grandmother is a wonderful woman! She is very well educated and she is always up for helping others before herself. She had to have that quality in order to be the boss to many nurses at a hospital in Chicago. My grandmother was great at her job and still would be! She got all the nurses what they needed when they needed it! She was the perfect boss!
Many years ago my grandmother retired from her career as a nurse. However, she never left the “boss” side of her at the hospital. She has carried that with her and will continue to do so until the day she dies. That has been the big problem between us for so long. We argue about so many things from the type of milk I drink to the type of vegetables I don’t eat. I have never opened up to her when we were disagreeing and fully told her how I feel. I usually just bite my tongue and walk away. But this time was different; I couldn’t do that during this argument. Maybe it was the pregnancy, maybe not, but whatever it was my feelings came out and I made sure she knew exactly how I felt!
This disagreement we had was about my baby shower coming up next month. She wanted to help with the shower because according to her, the mom-to-be is not supposed to do it. I didn’t care though; I began to plan it months ago only because if I did it I knew it would get done. We got together one day to discuss all the plans I had already made, from the games, to the decorations and the food. Now I think I should tell you that when my grandmother wants to plan something, or have people over, no matter what the occasion she always has to be in charge and do it all herself the way she wants it done.
So back to the day we got together and began discussing my plans. I started with the games and she agreed. “Wow.” I thought, “This may actually be easier than I thought.” I should’ve known because once I mentioned my cake and the fact that I was purchasing it that must have turned her stomach because she blew up and said “I’m not paying that much for a cake when I can get one made for free.” Well we argued for a bit back and forth and I finally told her that the cake was not getting any changes because that is how I wanted it.
That was the first time I had ever opened up and talked to my grandmother that way. I have too much respect for my family to talk to any of them that way, but I don’t know what it was about this time I guess I just couldn’t take the fact that she wanted to take over and change everything. I regret talking to her like that, I feel really bad and I understand that the way she thinks and does things are different and not everyone likes it but we all must deal with it because she is family and we all love her. I have dealt with her being the way she is and I will continue to do so, out of respect and the fact that she is family.
I’m still not sure why I blew up like that and I know it was silly, especially over a cake, but that was the only thing that I spent a lot of time on. I looked for the perfect cake and when I found it, I knew it. We still have a lot of things to do for my baby shower and not much time. One thing that’s marked off the list is the cake because I finally got her to agree to let me take care of it. I knew I would get at least one thing I wanted!

blog 3

Disagreeing with someone that you know very well and respect is really hard mentally and emotionally. You have to think about how your argument is going to sound to them, and you have to be careful not to offend them. The one person that I respect more than anyone else in the world is my father. He has been there for me through everything. He has always been the one I call up if I ever have a problem. There is one thing that he and I have not been able to see eye to eye on; who should be president. I hadn’t realized how much we disagreed until recently, when Barak Obama and John McCain were nominated to run for presidency. I do share a lot of the same feelings towards certain issues. We both believe that the government should butt out of peoples personal lives, lower taxes, and better health care. Unfortunately, I think that Obama will help us achieve some of these goals, and he thinks McCain will achieve these goals.

I think a lot of how my father feels about Obama has a lot to do with the fact that Obama has a Muslim background, and he is half African American. My father was raised in an era where African Americans weren’t treated equally, they still aren’t treated as equally as they should, and I think he does have more prejudice feelings towards them then he lets on. I know for a fact that he doesn’t like Mexican Americans; mostly because he was fired and replaced with Mexican Americans. A lot of this can lead to the resentful feelings that he seems to have towards people of different races; and I think that is why he is voting for McCain. Whenever we talk about the presidency and who we think should win; he completely shuts down and says that Obama is a terrorist and that he loves this country being a democracy and doesn’t want it to become a communist country. My father completely shuts off when it we talk about the presidential candidates. So it makes it hard to even try and discuss the election.