Talking With Our Families...

I love talking about my family—its structure, uniqueness, and the love we have for each other. We are a family far from perfect, but very close-knit and intimate. I love my family and I feel proud to include them in this assignment.

A Little Background…
What is the most unique thing about my family is our unconditional love for each other. Sometimes I don’t get to see my sisters or parents as often as I would like to, but we all know that we are there for each other always and until the end. And while that is true, that doesn’t automatically make things easy on a child growing up in a divorced household. Although divorce is quite common among families today, I often felt like I was one of the only kids growing up 10 years ago with divorced parents. It used to confuse me and make me upset at times, but now I see how lucky I am to have these people in my life, regardless of their marital status. My family has a very odd structure to it. I have half-siblings and step-grandparents, remarried and re-divorced parents. I’m very used to saying things like, “this is Katie, my half-sister’s husband’s step-sister.” There are many different families within my family. Most importantly is that all sides of the family get along well with each other! Thank goodness!

Growing up with what I felt like was an unusual family situation, it would have been easier for me, I believe, if I were more welcome to express my feelings about my parents’ separation. When I was younger, I felt a very secure attachment to my mother, but not as much to my father. Where my father tended to be distant and passive at times, my mother was almost always responsive and available to me. What is very interesting to me when researching families and divorce is that children of different age groups experience and interpret divorce differently. For example, young children may adapt more easily than other ages and may suffer less. Older children may hold their parents responsible because cognitively they are able to harbor more thoughts and make assumptions and judgments about their parents. They may assign blame to their parents as well. Adolescents can have changes in feelings and can create a kind of emotional void. They are likely to distance themselves and associate with peers instead of family. The risks are different with each age group in divorce. Laumann-Billings and Emery’s study offers the conclusion that while college-aged students from divorced families reported painful feelings, beliefs and memories about their parents’ divorce, they rarely have long-term psychological consequences. The close attachment I had to my mom did help me get through some of the rough patches during the time of my parents’ separation, but a more open communication would have been more effective in helping my sisters and me through that time. In the article “Focus on Kids: Helping Children Understand Divorce”, Kim Leon and Kelly Cole recommend that keeping an open dialogue with children going through parental separation is a key part of their development.

Family In Action…
When I am at family gatherings, I see a very different side of my family. On Thanksgiving this year, my dad, his girlfriend, my sister and I went to Connecticut to visit my Uncle, Aunt and cousins. Every time I visit with them, I know in advance that it is going to be a very different experience than what I am used to. I am accustomed to the kind of family that is split-up and spends much time away from each other (my parents are divorced, and I see my mom and sister only every other week or so). I am used to brief interactions lasting not much longer than a meal. After that amount of time, I start to lose my patience and feel the need to get out. For this Thanksgiving, the plan was to stay for three days...

When we arrived, we spent about the first hour hugging and reminiscing about previous visits and family gatherings. For instance, last time I was at my cousins’ house, I pulled a Kimberly Stewart and lost control of the motorbike and let it fly out from underneath me. Or how about the time when my cousin Matt threw the steak at the cat… Or how about the time Erika ran into the plate-glass door… My family is a story-telling group, especially on my father’s side. I can’t get past my grandfather without hearing “about the time when…” As Rebecca Leonard’s says in her “He Said, She Said” presentation of Tannen’s book, “men use talk to establish and defend personal status and ideas by asserting themselves, telling jokes and stories, etc. . . . Communication is a way to exert control, entertain and enhance status.” This kind of communication demands attention, like my grandfather--the one telling the story! Most of the time I’ve heard these stories a million times before, and almost all of the time they are exaggerated. But it makes our family gatherings so much fun! Although my cousins and I snicker behind my grandfather’s back when he tells those long, drawn-out, repetitive stories, we appreciate them because they bring us together and make us laugh. We have, in a way, become our grandfather as a result of exposure to constant story-telling! When we come together for a family gathering, holiday, birthday or otherwise, we reminisce about past reunions and who-did-what. It is possible that someday we will have grandchildren of our own who roll their eyes and snicker at us behind our backs when we tell our own stories.

While I’m on the topic of communication within the family, there is one more example I must use. The night of Thanksgiving, after all the food had been eaten and the “adults” (parents and grandparents, age 50+) had gone to bed, the “kids” (children ranging from age 18-25) decided to stay up and play Taboo. In Taboo, the object of the game is for a player to have their partner(s) guess the word on their card without using the word itself or five additional words listed on the card. We split up into teams: the guys versus the girls, and we had 4 on each team. The girls’ team won by about 30 points! My theory is that women are far more accustomed to talking and being sensitive to word usage, word choice, picking up on the nonverbal cues, and paying attention to the little details such as not saying one of the words on the card. This game brilliantly illustrated the communication types between men and women! I highly recommend this game for any family function, and to make it really entertaining, divide the teams first with a mix of guys and girls, and then into guys-versus-girls for the next round and see what the difference is!

"He Says, She Says"

The topic of gender communication is a mystery so fascinating to me, and something I want to learn more about. Each new experience and relationship will teach us something new and different, either about ourselves or our relationships. I find it interesting that there are so many books published about self-help and relationships in particular. The book “Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus” by John Gray truly reflects the predicament so many of us find ourselves in, even in the title itself. This link provides a brief summary of some of the main points he makes in his book for those who haven’t read it.

Although I found the literature in the Mercury Reader and the other handouts helpful in putting my thoughts into words and providing examples of poor communication and ways to make it better, there is no better way to learn about cross-gender communication than to be involved in a situation or relationship where you are experiencing this communication first-hand. It is similar to learning a new language—Spanish, for instance. A person can sit in a classroom and study the verb agreement and vocabulary all day long from your textbook, but they will learn the language much more thoroughly if he submerses himself in the culture of a country like Costa Rica or Brazil.

I’ve recently “submersed” myself when it comes to understanding men. I have been spending time with a close friend, Jason, and his friends. Since I’ve known Jason I’ve gone out to bars to watch a few Monday night games with some of his male friends. This isn’t my first choice of how I’d like to spend a Monday night as I’m not a big sports fan, but it can be fun getting into it every once in a while. This pattern of outings with the guys has been an interesting experience because by being out with them (usually at Hooters), I have come to understand and appreciate their behaviors a little bit more each time. They interact very differently with each other than women interact with each other. They don’t exchange in as much conversation as women usually do. When we are at Hooters watching the game, they all have a clear view of a different TV, and they just eat and watch the game. When one of the guys brings a girl with him, I sit and chat with her, even if she is a sports fan coming to watch a game, too. Come to think of it, maybe that is why in general, women enjoy watching sports less than men because it involves sitting and watching, and not much talking or other interpersonal interaction! I hate to generalize, but this is my theory! I believe that for women, talking leads to intimacy and they need to feel some sort of intimacy in their relationships. Men however, don’t need this intimacy in their relationships with their friends, and so sitting and talking is not something on which they place high value in their friendships. They need to “do.” Deborah Tannen says it well in the following quote, taken from an article I found online Laura Bryannan:

"For males, conversation is the way you negotiate your status in the group and keep people from pushing you around; you use talk to preserve your independence. Females, on the other hand, use conversation to negotiate closeness and intimacy; talk is the essence of intimacy, so being best friends means sitting and talking. For boys, activities, doing things together, are central. Just sitting and talking is not an essential part of friendship. They're friends with the boys they do things with."

Sometimes we need a “buddy”, and sometimes we need a “friend”, per our discussion in class on Wednesday. For women, communication is the centerpiece of friendships and relationships. It is crucial for us to express our feelings. Similarly, I’ve found that the relationships men have with each other are as vital to them as women’s relationships are with each other, although I may not understand them or like the way they act when they’re around each other. Whereas men need the time with their buddies to engage in man-to-man conversation, women need the time to engage in woman-to-woman conversation with their buddies, too. One relationship that I place high value on is my relationship with my friend Jason. We can relate a lot to each other on many different levels. His honesty and openness in talking about relationships between men and women in particular has allowed me to learn a lot from a man’s point of view. As psychology majors, we have both taken classes that examine all kinds of relationships very closely, and we have rather insightful opinions on the secrets to successful relationships. Talking about our thoughts and feelings helps us to better understand the workings of communication between men and women.

In class on Wednesday we talked about how men show emotional closeness through “doing” and not usually talking. Almost all the time, men are looking to solve a problem. There have been many times when I have been on the verge of tears and had no other option but to spill my guts to my father, a male friend or my boyfriend. In situations where I need to “vent” it is better to talk to a girlfriend, sister or my mom, but they may not be available all the time. I can’t count the number of times that such a conversation turned into a problem-solving situation on the part of the man when all I wanted was someone to listen (and maybe offer a hug). Not only does this misunderstanding affect the way we are able to communicate, but it often leads to another conversation: an argument!

Men reading this blog are truly going to roll their eyes when they read the following story…
I was recently sitting with Jason on the couch and he had his arm around my waist. He was playfully tugging on my tummy “fat” and I kept nudging his hand away because it makes me feel fat and I don’t like it! I told him to stop and when he asked why, I explained that I’m self-conscious about that (this is where guys get all pissed off). Since this is a friendship that involves lots of open, honest communication, we decided to delve into a small debate about how and why women often talk about feeling fat or insecure about their bodies. It’s gets on the man’s nerves. Instead of leaving it at that, which until that point had satisfied me, Jason decided to step in and offer a solution to the problem. He opened his mouth to say “well, why don’t you just—” and I stopped him right then and there.

“Choose your next word or words very carefully,” I cut in, looking him straight in the eye. “I do not want to hear what you’re about to say if it’s going to be something ‘constructive’. I’m very sensitive about my body and what I look like, and I know what I should and shouldn’t eat, so if you have anything you want to say on that matter, please, for the sake of my feelings, save it.”

He went on to say that when people talk about thinking they are fat, his solution for them is to just stop eating the junk. “Cut out the chocolate; cut out the munching,” was his advice as Problem-Solver. As someone who has told me countless times that he likes the shape of my body, I didn’t let this comment get to me. But in the past, for instance, my dad has commented on how much food I serve myself at dinnertime. He has looked at my servings and said things such as, “if you’re trying to lose weight, you should watch how much you serve yourself, and try to eat slower.” He has no idea how much it hurts, because he thinks only about how to get from (A) the problem to (B) the solution. However, by doing this he makes me feel stupid because I feel talked-down to and makes me feel like a pig for eating fast! Being hungry and losing weight are two independent factors. Note to men: Don’t try to be a problem-solver, especially when it comes to a woman’s physique!

If I took Jason’s advice and “stopped munching” right then and there, I wouldn’t immediately shed the weight I want to lose. So why give me that advice? It’s only hurtful, and not effective. What is interesting about this interaction is that Jason assumed I wanted to hear constructive feedback so that if I took his advice and cut the snacking out of my diet, I wouldn’t feel bad about my body in the future. Nice in theory, but not realistic. If any other guy said that to me, I probably would have interpreted that as, “if he is giving me advice to stop snacking, he must agree that I have weight to lose. He must think I’m fat,” …and the miscommunication begins. When I talk about body image, it is much more effective when it is with another woman, because she can almost always relate. Women can share their insecurities and weaknesses with each other because they know other women have similar thoughts and feelings. Women also generally have more compassion, even if they are going to take the problem-solving role. The miscommunication in this situation was simply that he saw it one way and I saw it another way.
“When Harry Met Sally” and “The Breakup” both illustrate excellent examples of ineffective communication between men and women. It’s a shame we weren’t able to watch the entirety of either of them, because there are plenty more examples in both. One of my favorite examples is when Harry is telling Sally about a man’s thought process after having sex. He says that after having sex, men lay and ponder how much time they have to stay there and hold the woman until he can get up and go home. I don’t know if that is true for all men, or if they just wonder how long they have to lay there with the woman until they can roll over and fall asleep, but either way, it is a funny scene!

There really doesn’t seem to be a solution to this issue. Both sexes acknowledge that there is a miscommunication between the sexes. To be resolved, there would have to be compromise and full understanding of one another about an issue, but what stands in the way of that is often the miscommunication itself. Until there is a book written about the solution, we will have to continue trying to crack the code by learning through our experiences and relationships.

Cleaning House! Moving On!

“The Perfect, Ideal Relationship Doesn’t Exist” – Wow, McKay, et al. must have been real rocket scientists to come up with that one! (Hahaha, just kidding.) But if you’ve ever had a relationship of any kind—friendship or romantic relationship, you have discovered that this statement is very true. There’s no such thing as perfection—with regards to relationships or life in general! Relationships can be great things, and we wouldn’t be able to survive if they didn’t exist. But some relationships can cause us harm or pain; physically, mentally and socially. Therefore, we sometimes need to cut off ties with a person, place, or thing for the betterment of ourselves. “Cleaning house”, in my experience, is the analogy that refers to the act of being overloaded with “clutter”—things on my mind or in my life—that accumulate to the point where something has got to go!

This is the perfect day for me to write this blog, because at this very moment I am going through some literal and figurative “house cleaning.” Recently I have had to do some house-cleaning of my own! The three situations that follow are real problems I am dealing with right now that require or have recently required a bit of house-cleaning. This concept is helping me to more effectively live my life and react to and deal with certain people, and situations. Things in my life that often ‘pile up’ as a result of not dealing with certain issues are: finances, issues with my [romantic] relationships, and school work. I procrastinate sometimes because it is easier to not deal with things than to deal with them.

Senioritis?...
School work is something that has become a burden for me suddenly just this year. Up to this point at Rider I have a great GPA and have had great relationships with all my teachers. I work hard and do well academically, and I participate in on-campus clubs and off-campus organizations. This year, however, I have had so many other things occurring in my life and changes that have taken place (which I will explain later) that it has been hard to take the time to concentrate on my school work and other things that I previously made more time for. I still get things done on time for the most part in all my classes, but I have been waiting until the night before something is due to tackle it instead of planning it out responsibly and taking action sooner and more effectively.

Today I cleared and organized my calendar and made room for all the things I need to do between now and the end of the semester in order to get the grades I know I am capable of. There are only 6 weeks left! ‘Cleaning house’ in this regard will involve telling my friends that I need at least a week to get myself organized both physically (I am looking around my room right now—yikes, I’ve never seen so much crap) and emotionally (the clutter would look remarkably similar in my head).

Those Damn Relationships…
My boyfriend and I had been together since August 2003. Our relationship ended rather abruptly in July of this year. We were only a few weeks away from our 4-year anniversary when we broke up, and every day since then has been a new adventure for me. The reasons for our break up are especially pertinent to this blog post, and since I feel more and more comfortable with our decision to breakup each time I talk about it, I don’t mind sharing what happened. Both Bobby and I needed to do some “house cleaning” for ourselves, and even though I haven’t talked to him in nearly 3 months, I can say with confidence that we both agree it was the right thing to do.

In hindsight, I can say that the house-cleaning came at a most opportune time. The last year of college is a stressful time: a time of change and decision-making. Bobby was struggling in school and at work because we were spending our weekends to go see each other (he’s in Maryland and I’m up here at Rider). Neither of us ever had a break. For the past few years this has been an on-and-off struggle: sometimes it didn’t bother us, and sometimes it got close to ending our relationship. Finally, we broke up this summer. He said he needed to really focus on school and finding a new job (which he had a difficult time doing since he saw me every weekend), and crack down on stuff he needed to do, and I couldn’t agree more with his decision because I needed to do the same. I miss him and I’m sure he misses me but we are at a turning-point in our lives and we have to go our separate ways for now. I told him when he wanted to get back together a few weeks later that this is for the best, and if we want to give it a try sometime down the road when we’re both somewhat settled in our careers, I’d love to give it another try. But both our lives were cluttered with things that had a lot to do with our relationship with each other, and so we had to clean house! We had to get rid of the thing in our lives that was holding us down, and unfortunately, being in a long-distance relationship, that thing was each other.

Finances—Ugh!
I come from a divorced family where money wasn’t always plentiful growing up—my mother, sister and I lived in a safe home in a good school district, but we didn’t have money to throw away. We learned to make things work, and I owe it to those early experiences for why I am a responsible shopper and spender! However, being a full-time student in college makes it difficult to work and save. Sometimes I live paycheck-to-paycheck, and sometimes I can afford to save and/or spend a little extra. I am responsible for spending what I have and saving what I can when I can. This adds a significant amount of stress to my life. If I can’t have something that I want, I get upset inside. Why can’t I have that but other people can? …I hate that question. Why do I have to save my own money but other people can just take, take, take from their parents? …I hate that question, too. I want a new pair of boots even though my boots from last season are in good condition; I want a new coat, even though I have plenty of those. I want things that I can’t have because I have to be responsible, because: What if something happened and I needed cash? …Another question I hate, but it’s one that I have to keep in the back of my mind.

Just yesterday I checked my account balance and my bank at home, and the number staring back at me was significantly different—lower!—than what I thought it would be. Shit, I thought. I casually slipped it into a conversation I was having later in with my mom about how money was low and I needed some extra cash. I offered to do some work around the house, such as painting the room she is re-doing and raking leaves, in exchange for a little bit of cash. Her response was that she would let me know if she could afford it, but “speaking of finances, in the meantime, look in the mail—you have something from ____________________” (a previous employer). I knew it wasn’t a paycheck because it’s been a while since I worked there, but my name and address were hand-written on the envelope and I thought maybe my boss had sent me a personal letter. It made me excited to open it up, because I might be looking there for a job after graduation! To my surprise, the letter was from the HR/Payroll department. It was a Notice of Overpayment! And they WANT THE MONEY BACK!

The tears came. The chunks rose in my throat. I couldn’t believe what I was reading. Not only do I believe I fairly earned that money, but I almost certainly have spent all of it! I’d just checked my account at the bank and knew not how to handle this situation. My heart was racing. I was so furious that I did not know how to react or what next step to take. I told my mom what the letter said, and I told my dad after I got back to Princeton later that evening. Both of them offered their help and guidance, but I know this is an issue that I have to take responsibility for. I have to gather my bank statements and pay stubs and calendar from the time period when I worked there—this falls mostly on my shoulders, not my parents’.

I called the Human Resources/Payroll department and I am in the process of working this thing out. When I called, I prepared with everything I was going to say. I had cried and was going to shed no more tears. I was not going to show my vulnerability or fear in the voicemail I left. I channeled my energy into effective communication by using a kind strength in my voice. “I would like to talk to someone in your department regarding Case #XXXXXXX. I believe this was a mistake, but I am going to need the paperwork, copies of all paychecks I received, and my start- and finish- dates from your records. I will compare those records with my records and then we can work to resolve this matter. Thank you very much.” I was able to control my anger and was genuinely open to the idea that maybe they are correct and that they did, in fact, pay me more, although I think they have made a mistake. Regardless of the outcome of this case, I dealt with my emotions without being overcome by them in a way that I can hopefully continue when we pursue this matter over the next few weeks. The most difficult part about this scenario is that I may want a job at this company again in the future. So, I had to communicate in a way that was counter to how I felt. I had to behave myself!

Lessons learned: the stress just never ends with finances. Maybe it never will! My previous employer is going to have to give me some time to pay it back gradually, especially because the fault lies with them. “Cleaning house” in this situation is going to be a literal gathering of paperwork and bringing them to the previous employer and/or to my lawyer’s office. But this also requires some mental house-cleaning: I can not have all this clutter in my head about finances. I have been learning to keep my records straight with paychecks, bank statements and receipts, and this situation reinforces that I’ve been doing the right thing by keeping those records! It also teaches me that I need to keep my emotional clutter limited. Soon after this letter came, I sat down and started making a list of all the things I had to do: school work, get my finances straightened out, and crack down on a few other things that are “cluttering” my life at this point. I have to make some calls but keep my cool when I talk to the people about this situation, even though I really want to kick and scream and yell. Keeping track of money and dealing with the situations in a mature, effective way are things I’ll have to deal with, probably for the rest of my life. Finances may not always be a problem, but it may never be fun or easy to deal with.
● Possible final overpayment charge to previous employer: $683.00
● Potential lawyer’s fee: $200
● Knowing that I communicated with HR/Payroll effectively and didn’t emotionally fly off the handle: Priceless

All the things above are/were stressors in my life. Notice how in each example I said something like “I think about it” or “I internalize it” or “I get stressed out about it”. I don’t communicate it or properly ‘deal’ with it in the way that would be possibly more effective in relieving stress from my life. The house cleaning is a good way of ridding me of these stressors.

● The attached link is a site I came across when researching this topic. We talked about these components for effective communication in class, and I thought it was interesting to see it on a resource outside of class. Ironically, most of what came up when I typed in “effective communication” came from HUMAN RESOURCE sites! Ahhh! http://www.drbalternatives.com/articles/cc2.html

● The picture is self-explanatory. We’ve all felt like this before!