fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2574 ]

Tell us stories about the times you and your parents conflicted over the ways values, norms, behavior, etc, have changed over time from their generation to yours.

Or you and your children, or your parents and your grandparents.

This is every conversation with my dad ever. I've tried to explain women's and LGBTQ rights to him over and over, but he still has trouble even understanding why we have the internet.

[TW]

^My dad's alright with women's rights, thank heaven, but he... doesn't like gay people, let's put it that way, though TBH I dunno how much of the stuff he says is to rile me up. And oh my God, the... I'm not sure what to call it, I guess privilege? He'll specifically say things like, "That fat black woman over there". Um, really?

Re: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand..."

dethtoll - 2014-01-19 23:17 (UTC) - Expand

"people you know on the internet and speak to every day who know more about you and what you're really like than anyone else in the world, aren't really your friends. why don't you go hang out with the neighbors who have nothing in common with you instead? at least they're real."

Re: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand..."

(Anonymous) - 2014-01-19 21:59 (UTC) - Expand

Re: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand..."

(Anonymous) - 2014-01-19 22:48 (UTC) - Expand

Re: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand..."

agentcthulhu - 2014-01-20 19:39 (UTC) - Expand

(reply from suspended user)

Re: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand..."

dethtoll - 2014-01-19 21:53 (UTC) - Expand

Re: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand..."

(Anonymous) - 2014-01-20 00:27 (UTC) - Expand

Re: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand..."

dethtoll - 2014-01-20 00:30 (UTC) - Expand

Re: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand..."

(Anonymous) - 2014-01-20 00:36 (UTC) - Expand

Re: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand..."

(Anonymous) - 2014-01-20 01:48 (UTC) - Expand

Re: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand..."

mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com - 2014-01-20 02:57 (UTC) - Expand

Re: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand..."

blunderbuss - 2014-01-20 06:21 (UTC) - Expand

Re: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand..."

darkmanifest - 2014-01-20 00:33 (UTC) - Expand

Re: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand..."

dethtoll - 2014-01-20 01:27 (UTC) - Expand

Re: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand..."

riddian - 2014-01-20 01:50 (UTC) - Expand

Re: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand..."

(Anonymous) - 2014-01-20 12:43 (UTC) - Expand

My mom believes that aliens were the ones who helped ancient civilizations grow. I don't know how strongly she believes this (enough to buy a 5-book series on it), but she doesn't mention it much. When she does I just don't have it in me to argue against or for anything related to that subject.

Re: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand..."

(Anonymous) - 2014-01-19 22:44 (UTC) - Expand

Re: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand..."

caerbannog - 2014-01-19 23:12 (UTC) - Expand

My mother is weird about gay stuff.

I'm a trans guy (and also happen to be gay, incidentally). For years after I told my dad I was trans, he was convinced that I was a lesbian in denial. He thought I only "wanted to be" a man in order to be with women, and since he felt that it's fine to be a women who's interested in women, he wanted me to "accept myself" as a lesbian. He's been getting a bit better lately, but I'm honestly not sure that he doesn't still think that, deep down. I found it interesting that he would be so supportive of (what he thinks is my) sexuality, but he had such a hard time even believing me about my gender.

Re: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand..."

(Anonymous) - 2014-01-19 22:51 (UTC) - Expand

Re: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand..."

(Anonymous) - 2014-01-19 22:59 (UTC) - Expand

Re: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand..."

(Anonymous) - 2014-01-20 01:54 (UTC) - Expand

My Mom is fine with things like gay rights, but she doesn't understand facebook campaigning. I know she wouldn't approve of me telling all of my FB friends that I support gay marriage - not because she doesn't believe in it, she does, but because she thinks it's one of those things you should believe privately.

My dad used to pop off with slurs and stories about the 'damn blacks' that he was around in WWII (not surprising that they weren't super-excited to be pushed into the roles of cooks, drivers, etc. instead of getting to actually be soldiers) and i would argue with him about how just because the ones he met in wwii were like 'that', that not *all* of them were the same. He also had choice things to say about pretty much ever *other* race/belief out there, and we argued about that *constantly*. He surprisingly was sympathetic to and respected Native Americans.

It always baffled me, because he grew up in a multi-ethnic neighboorhood, the son of immigrant parents, and he spoke english and portugese and greek and italian and some...turkish? i think? because of all the kids he hung out with and how he'd go to their houses for dinner and stuff. But he was never, not once, rude to *anyone* in a racist way in front of me or at his job, etc. Just at home he'd grumble about stuff.

Made for a lot of fights, but he did listen to me. We both agreed that Vietnam was a craptastic and useless war.

Re: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand..."

(Anonymous) - 2014-01-19 23:15 (UTC) - Expand

Re: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand..."

tabaqui - 2014-01-19 23:19 (UTC) - Expand

Re: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand..."

dethtoll - 2014-01-20 01:30 (UTC) - Expand

/lols uselessly

riddian - 2014-01-20 01:55 (UTC) - Expand

Re: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand..."

(Anonymous) - 2014-01-20 02:08 (UTC) - Expand

Re: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand..."

tabaqui - 2014-01-20 02:17 (UTC) - Expand

Re: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand..."

(Anonymous) - 2014-01-20 02:32 (UTC) - Expand

Re: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand..."

tabaqui - 2014-01-20 02:35 (UTC) - Expand

Re: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand..."

(Anonymous) - 2014-01-20 03:00 (UTC) - Expand

Re: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand..."

(Anonymous) - 2014-01-20 03:03 (UTC) - Expand

Re: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand..."

tabaqui - 2014-01-20 04:42 (UTC) - Expand

Re: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand..."

mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com - 2014-01-20 03:04 (UTC) - Expand

Re: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand..."

(Anonymous) - 2014-01-20 07:14 (UTC) - Expand

My mother is weirdly super liberal about some things and super conservative about other things and I just don't know how she got that way. My dad is just a "live and let live" sort of person.

We don't disagree about much, but one recent point of divergence that was more odd and amusing than angrifying was over the movie Brave. My parents were all "WTF is this mom-turns-into-a-bear crap? Where's the good prince/knight/whatever who changes her mind about marriage? THIS ISN'T HOW THE STORY IS SUPPOSED TO GO!" and I was like "LOL guys, you know how different movies sometimes have, like, different plots? There's no 'supposed to' about how this story goes since it's an original story and can go anyway it wants." They got really hung up on it though, and I still don't quite get their problem other than it defied their expextations.

Re: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand..."

(Anonymous) - 2014-01-20 01:06 (UTC) - Expand

Re: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand..."

dethtoll - 2014-01-20 01:31 (UTC) - Expand

Re: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand..."

mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com - 2014-01-20 03:06 (UTC) - Expand

Re: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand..."

(Anonymous) - 2014-01-20 21:40 (UTC) - Expand

My mom flips her shit so hard about any sort of depictions of sex in movies or TV (and rants about how it promotes rape(????) and stuff).

I think this is more of a culture thing than a generational thing though -- she's from India, where movies are still rated R if they show people kissing.

Re: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand..."

(Anonymous) - 2014-01-20 01:12 (UTC) - Expand

Re: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand..."

(Anonymous) - 2014-01-20 02:36 (UTC) - Expand

My mom's a second wave feminist (I think that's the term for what she is? Not the current generation of feminism) with some New Ageism stuff thrown in. She's so full of racism, classism, evolutionary psychology, etc. But she's a feminist just like me, so we're the same, she says! Why did I get mad at her when she says white women treated their female slaves like human beings? It makes ~~convenient~~ sense, because white women were property too, so they understood how wrong slavery was. She read it in a book so it's true. I should be proud, not mad. Oh, I must be sexist and reverse racist just like everyone who isn't her and her fellow white feminists. (She's not even white, she's just light-skinned enough to say she is when she wants to claim to be persecuted about it.)

Re: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand..."

darkmanifest - 2014-01-20 00:42 (UTC) - Expand

Re: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand..."

(Anonymous) - 2014-01-20 01:05 (UTC) - Expand

My parents have some bizarre ideas about feminism. I mean, they're bizarre to me, but I guess when my parents were my age they must've been widely accepted ideas?

For example, they think most feminists are radfems and the ones who aren't are a minority, no matter how much I try to convince them it's really the other way around.

They also think all feminists are lesbians, and that men who support feminism are either gay, or are just going along with it because their wives/girlfriends are.

And they think women naturally don't have libidos, but nowadays they pretend to because feminism made it "trendy".

Re: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand..."

(Anonymous) - 2014-01-19 23:25 (UTC) - Expand

Re: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand..."

diet_poison - 2014-01-20 01:49 (UTC) - Expand

I'm late to the party. Sorry.

My Grandmother was born in 1920's Boston, which was a very, very conservative place back in the day (ever heard the phrase 'Banned in Boston'?). Her parents divorced when she was small and according to her that made her illegitimate. She actually tried to hide it from Grandad. I never understood it.

My father is the most Democratic Democrat who ever Democrated, was born in Massachusetts, and spent his career as a squid in the Navy. I'm a run-of-the-mill Republican, a Virginian, and put in my five years as a grunt in the Army. We don't fight very often, but we can play up our differences if we want. The only thing he's conservative about is the length of his daughter's (me) dresses.

I also have an uncle who not very subtly let me know that he doesn't approve of Catholicism.

Re: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand..."

(Anonymous) - 2014-01-20 02:52 (UTC) - Expand

Re: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand..."

iceyred - 2014-01-20 03:01 (UTC) - Expand

My mother is all in all pretty accepting and believing in the agency of the individual, as in she never pushed me to be a girl when I was growing up, she can accept my horrible dirty jokes, we can have conversations about all kinds of societal issues, she has nothing against LGBT people, was even quite enthusiastic about my Dad being hit on by a gay neighbour... and can't accept in any way that I am biexual, as in full on ignoring mood and can't believe anybody (least of all men) would find two women together hot (as in disregarding that whole chunk of the porn industry). She also has some weird issues with indian people, not in general, just doesn't want them staying in her house (in contrast to all the other people from around the world we sometimes have visiting). Whenever one of her strange beliefs comes up I just get blindsided because normally she doesn't stand for such nonsense.

My dad on the other hand is just plain old-fashioned, beliefs women and men have those really rigid gender roles that also influence their biological capacities. Women in particular should take it as a compliment when you stare at their ass...

My mom, despite having been a really good special education teacher and having a minor in psychology, has really stupid views on psychiatry. I'm bipolar, and my mother just does not get that I'm not "throwing a hissy fit", or that being stressed is hazardous to my health instead of being a personal moral failing. I think it's more of a 'not my kid' thing instead of an 'it's not real at all' thing, though.

She also doesn't understand why we have anti-discrimination laws. You know, because queer people and racial minorities have, like, all the rights. No one ever beat someone for being gay. Blacks were never considered not fully human. Besides, she never sees someone be mean to the Mexican men at work, many of whom come from Puerto Rico. You know, the Mexican part of Puerto Rico. o_O

I don't get it. She's a smart person, otherwise. She encourages reading and critical thinking.

Weirdly, my dad was the bigger feminist between my parents, rather than my mom. That said, in most sociopolitical problems, my dad tends to get a bit too caught up in the big picture, while I'm more concerned in the day-to-day problems. Combined with the fact he still tends to act on certain gendered cultural norms that makes his views a little hypocritical, we...used to have a lot of friction that we've mostly solved by 'not talking about it'.

i.e. he really is big on the natural influence of matriarchy and the concept of societies where neither gender was in charge or where women were in charge. Which is great - it's great that a man gets interested in matriarchy without fetishizing it! But he's also ridiculously afraid of being falsely accused of sexual harassment in the workplace, and so if he is faced with two perfectly equal/balanced candidates for hiring, he will choose the male candidate over the female one (though he also says that the situation of two 'perfectly balanced candidates who are equally good for the position' never really happens). He...did not take kindly to me calling him sexist for that. We've also had arguments over likelihood of assault and sexual assault, and he would kind of go on about the history of sex and power in society while I'm busy insisting that yes, I can walk home from the bus stop an hour later than I usually do, why the fuck are you being ~so conservative~ about this?!

My mother is...extremely liberal, but mostly in that she tends to not pay attention to things like racism or sexism as an issue. She and my father both always tried to raise me in such a way that ignored or defied gender stereotypes. That said, she is also very, ah, culturally entrenched, so while in a general sense she is very feministic (she absolutely loves how all my dream jobs have been high-professional type things, very supportive of reproductive and women's rights, etc), she tends to still hold very conservative and sexist views when it comes to smaller things. i.e. I was never allowed to get a babysitting job because she was terrified of potential molesters/rapists (not even housesitting, because what if the owners of the house gave a key to someone who comes in and rapes you? - completely ignoring that if they had, I wouldn't be there in the first place -_-), she practically had to run a background check on everyone before letting me set foot in their house (so I tended to just lie to her for most of my childhood), and she still has a lot of issues over 'decency' and tends to think that my rants about how 'decency' issues are tools of the patriarchy are just an excuse to be lazy and, say, keep my pads and tampons at the front of the cabinet by the toilet in the shared bathroom instead of pushing them towards the back and keeping them 'hidden from sight'. She also nearly cried when I told her that, when she made me take a ride home with a teacher after I missed a school bus in middle school, she put me in far more danger of being molested than if I'd just walked a few blocks over to (and later from) the train/bus station, which is what I had asked to do on the phone.

tl;dr - my parents are big on feminism and sticking it to the patriarchy in the big picture...but it doesn't always pan out in the little details of life, which are what I largely care about, so despite their liberalism there is still quite a bit of friction.

When I was seven my dad told me that if I was gay people would hate me, but that him and my mom would still love me. My instant, childish reaction was to yell, "NO!" at him. I couldn't imagine why anyone would hate anyone for that.

My dad was a 50's baby, and this was during the 80's. In a moment of teenage retrospect I guessed he was just trying to warn me about all the hate in the world so that when I encountered it, I would be prepared. ...Fast forward to today, I'm bisexual myself, and with maturity and more hindsight I can't help but feel that he probably spoke from experience.

It wasn't his behaviour that changed, but I'm glad the world is changing to behave more like him. RIP, dad.

Maybe not quite what you were going for, but sure interesting: my mom thinks my sister "has demons in her" because she doesn't want to go to church. Um no mom, she's not fucking possessed, she's just an atheist now. I'm pretty sure it has not even occurred to my mom that anyone in her family could be anything other than a devout Christian.

At least she hasn't tried to do an exorcism.

My parents' norms, values, beliefs, and all other philosophical underpinnings varied depending on the values, beliefs, and philosophical underpinnings of whoever the latest mark was, in whatever grift they were currently using.

Hmm. Rap music, sex, pregnancy, abortion, and the public's attitude toward veterans are things that come to mind that I either did clash with my parents about, or could have, if certain events had come to pass.

Overall, as Roman Catholic Republicans of the 'Greatest Generation' raising a child of the 70's went, they were relatively tolerant and open-minded people. Certainly a far cry from some of the conservative wingnuts who are running the party today. They had various blind spots and things they coolly disapproved of, but I never heard them use hateful language, and I think they genuinely believed that people who disagreed, even about important things, should still treat each other as human beings.

My Mum is pretty good on most things, but the one thing I try and avoid bringing up is gay people.

She sticks very much to the "homosexuality is a sin!" line of thinking, which I have long left behind. She's usually pretty okay with gay people in a "Love the sinner hate the sin" sort of way, but still thinks that if someone actually tried hard enough they can push it away and just not act on it.

My dear, intelligent, really-should-know-better mother once responded to a newspaper review of "Expelled" by saying "well, it's complicated, who really knows the answer?". She's not even religious.