Too Close to Home

So for those of you who don't know, we've moved one street away from my parents. This is good in a lot of ways, especially since they can have a real active role in the girls' lives plus give me a break.

However, there are several downsides, only one of which I will complain about today: we have no privacy!!!

Back when I lived 2000 miles away from my mother, I didn't have to worry about her opinion on every single thing I did. Now, if I have an unaccounted-for block of time in my schedule, she politely asks about it. But I don't want to tell her everything, and screaming "It's none of your business!" isn't really my style.

For example, and I feel like a real coward for admitting this, but I got involved with the local Democratic Party to support the Barack Obama campaign. I thought to myself, if McCain gets in and I didn't do ANYTHING to stop it (aside from vote, of course), I would kick myself forever and ever. So I showed up at a meeting, volunteered to make some phone calls and even hosted a voter registration table.

My parents are party Republicans, and annoyingly vocal about it. In fact, we had to designate politics as a no-go topic in the family just to keep everything from escalating into a real problem. So, I did my volunteering without my parents' knowledge.

It's weak and cowardly, I know, but I'm not going to change my parents' mind any more than they are going to change mine, so talk is wasted. Plus, I really don't want our family torn apart by differing ideologies.

I always admired activists and guerrilleros for their ability to stand up against "the man". I want to be like that, but when "the man" is my mom and dad, and after all they've done for us, I just can't bring myself to openly flaunt my protests in their faces.

As my husband puts it, my family lacks the ability to have "healthy conflict". Everything is personal with my dad. If you disagree with him, then you don't respect him. It's an attack against him. I think my mom mostly Republican because they are pro-life. BTW, I am pro-life, too (in a complicated, not 100% way), but that is NOT the biggest problem facing our country right now. Besides, we've had a Republican in office for 8 years now and women are still having abortions...

Thank goodness I married a man with similar views to mine. I guess all we can do is act on what we think is right and teach our children to do the same. I'd love to hear some other struggles of grown children with their parents. I know I'm not alone.