Welcome to the family

My family has always been really close. I don’t just mean my immediate family, brothers and sisters, but my cousins. At least on my mom’s side we were. I guess it’s because of my grandparents who were probably two of the best people I have ever had the honor of knowing. We all lived in nearby states, so we were together as often as possible.
While sitting with my aunts and my cousins I adopted a theory that I have now held for a long time. I love to talk, but when you are in a room with about a dozen women who are all taking part in the same conversation, more that once was I obliged to just listen. It goes against my nature, but the women with more experience were faster than me. So as I sat and observed I began to realize that every conversation always hit the same three topics: marriage, death, and babies. It was without fail. Younger crowds will often add a fourth subject, which is dreams, but that one varies.
I was recently sitting in a restaurant with some of my cousins and my sister and my brother’s fiancé. My sister is moving to Texas and it was a sort of good bye dinner. It was also a good chance to introduce my brother’s fiancé to the ways of the family. We had to wait for a table, and before we were really seated we had already reached those three topics. I mentioned this to my cousin and she said “no, it’s just women.”
That made me stop and think for a minute. There’s no question that men and women think differently. From the dawn of time, all the way back into the Garden of Eden. Adam was thinking “Nice tree, but don’t eat the apples.” And Eve said, “I think I want to have kids.” And that my friends, is why the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree to this very day.
For instance, Pride and Prejudice. Now, I’m not saying all women feel this way, or all men feel that way about it. Just in my experience, this is what I’ve seen. A woman will watch or read Pride and Prejudice and see a powerful love story full of social adventure and endless nuances. A man will scoff at the huge side burns and wonder what the big deal about Pemberly is. Women will say Elizabeth is the prettiest, men will choose Jane.
I like having conversations with men. There seems to be less pressure in some ways. First of all, when you are with a guy, you don’t have to talk about guys. You don’t have to talk about marriage, feminine needs, fashion or diets. Not that I don’t enjoy talking about any of those things, but it’s nice to have a break for a while.
That’s why it’s good to find a good balance of friends. When I talk to my girlfriends we also talk about books, movies, music, musicals, television shows, mythology and even stray into more philosophical topics, like the influence of female archetypes throughout history.
People seem to want to make this big war between men and women. What they’re doing isn’t liberation for either side. It’s falling victim to the same fallacy civilizations have been falling prey to for years: fighting what you don’t understand.
Men and women are different. They speak differently, have different interests, they are even better at different things. Women talk about marriage death and babies. And men, well, I know they talk about sports. I know there are other things to, but I’m no expert.
I guess my point goes back to my grandparents. My grandpa was an extraordinary man, and my grandmother was an amazing woman. They worked together and loved each other. They had five children, twenty three grandchildren, and are on their way to their tenth great grandchild. We all know each other, laugh with each other. The cousins all get along, the boys and the girls. The family knows everything, there are no secrets. We aren’t exactly to the point of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, but we aren’t far from it. And it’s wonderful.
And all of us know it’s because of our extraordinary heritage. There was such a love and respect created in their marriage that’s influenced all of us for the better and for the rest of our lives. We all have our differences, but I think that if we could try to understand each other, to respect and to love each other and of course work together, we’d find what we’ve really been fighting for and talking about is peace. Our differences make us stronger if we can learn to see past them.
Welcome to the family.