Yes, there is a lot of grey area between disowning them and giving into things. I know my parents and I can see the possibility of a simple request like "I believe in this and therefore can't stay here" *escalating* to a full-scale war that results in me disowning them because to my parents, if I choose not to stay with them, it means I don't love them and insisting that I do something they don't like is disrespecting them *sigh*. Had this situation been about a loved one/romantic partner/lover/etc. I would be more than willing to push the issue, regardless of the outcome. When I brought my triad home, and my mother seperated him from us girls, we spent the first night apart, but the rest of the nights, he came into our room anyway. It was particularly stupid because the actual first night in town, we were all in Los Angeles and the 3 of us had our own hotel room, and my parents came into the room in the morning and found both double beds pushed together. But they were my intentional Family, so I was willing to make a stand on that. It's because he is a Friend where I am concerned this is not the battle to pick. After all, they did let me share the room with sterlingsilver9 when he came to visit last May. That's part of my parents' excuse, actually, that I brought a different guy home a few months ago, so how would it look to my 10 year old nephew to be bringing home different guys all the time and sleeping with them? Because of the difficulty with coordinating vacations, and my poor track record of relationships not lasting longer than 2 years (until now!), those two things combined mean that I have not brought the same person/people home twice in a row. This doesn't help the impression of poly as a lasting and intimate relationship style and they're afraid my nephew will get the idea that I'm doing naughty things with all kinds of people and that's Just Not Right. Don't even get me started on the arguments against that and the holes in that logic.
I have a similar issue wtih gifts for the same reasons. I am also used to thinking of gifts as an obligation for gratitude, and it is usually given by people who feel equally obligated to give me these gifts and have no idea who I am or what I would like. I generally don't like gift exchanges, and I made the resolution several years ago that I refuse to exchange gifts for Christmas and Birthdays (except for my parents and my nephew who is a kid and wouldn't understand the morality behind this). If I happen to find a gift that just screams "YOU!" to me, I will purchase it and give it, whether it was a holiday or not. I will also accept gifts from people who insist on giving them to me anyway and I refuse to allow myself to feel guilty for not reciprocating, because I have already announced I don't.
I don't mind the check gift ... at least I can buy something I *know* I'll like. And for those that do the gift thing out of familial obligation, it gives me a perverse pleasure to know that if they give me money, they have to give me more money than they might actually spend on an object, so they don't seem cheap, when they could have bought a trinket and spent much less and I wouldn't know it. Because the obligated-thinkers think that way.
Very cool about the periodic table, btw. I would never have been given something that cool. I asked every year for a chemistry kit and those invisible men and women to study biology.
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Date: 12/9/06 04:50 pm (UTC)From:I have a similar issue wtih gifts for the same reasons. I am also used to thinking of gifts as an obligation for gratitude, and it is usually given by people who feel equally obligated to give me these gifts and have no idea who I am or what I would like. I generally don't like gift exchanges, and I made the resolution several years ago that I refuse to exchange gifts for Christmas and Birthdays (except for my parents and my nephew who is a kid and wouldn't understand the morality behind this). If I happen to find a gift that just screams "YOU!" to me, I will purchase it and give it, whether it was a holiday or not. I will also accept gifts from people who insist on giving them to me anyway and I refuse to allow myself to feel guilty for not reciprocating, because I have already announced I don't.
I don't mind the check gift ... at least I can buy something I *know* I'll like. And for those that do the gift thing out of familial obligation, it gives me a perverse pleasure to know that if they give me money, they have to give me more money than they might actually spend on an object, so they don't seem cheap, when they could have bought a trinket and spent much less and I wouldn't know it. Because the obligated-thinkers think that way.
Very cool about the periodic table, btw. I would never have been given something that cool. I asked every year for a chemistry kit and those invisible men and women to study biology.