Uncomfortable conversations vital

I have never been a fan of confrontation. I learned to get out of daunting conversations over time. It’s easy at loud, alcohol-fueled parties in your 20s. It’s slightly more difficult at boring and underattended networking events in your 30s. However, it is nearly impossible to dodge small kids with simple questions.

As we were getting ready to leave for an errand, I had a radio news report playing on my phone. It was discussing financial difficulties during the pandemic, especially for women. My daughter piped up saying, “Women get paid less?” My son, sitting on the floor pulling on his shoes, paused.

Quick mental debate: Are they ready for bits of sociology and economics? Can I even pull that together on the fly for a pre-K and elementary-level audience?

I failed and said, “Back in the day, it was OK to pay women less, and we’re, uh, working on fixing that.”

They both gave me a slightly confused and disgusted look they would have given had I told them the moon was made of cheese and not out of rock — like they’ve learned watching PBS. I continued, “Remember how I told you that women have only been allowed to vote for 100 years here? And that some people think they know you because of the color of your skin? It’s one of those silly things that we know better about now and are taking steps to fix.”

I don’t necessarily believe that, but that’s a longer, harder conversation. These aren’t silly things either; they’re things that are tearing families apart.

We have both sides claiming that it’s dialogue that will get us through, but there’s not so much a concern with the act of active listening and making changes that work for everyone. There’s a suggestion to dive into the individual perspectives: Put yourself in their shoes; try to understand their frustrations; walk that mile in the winter of their discontent.

But I only see that happening to further a cause, or not at all, as their highway is already decided.

There are reparations to be made, especially when I see a scuttling of allegiances, the hiding of flags that would have previously blocked the sun.

After last week, there was a slow murmur of how there is work to be done, how there are conversations to be had. But don’t we also need a few moments to breathe and wonder how effective we are at reaching one another? What we have been doing isn’t working.

A reader emailed me his dismay that his generation may have ruined the planet. He tried not to. I replied that the power of the individual might need an examination. Until we can have more conversations about how corporations are the largest polluters and, continuing on that thought, how even well- meaning people who want to enact change are still limited by their abilities in a system, we may not be able to move forward at all. How do we change the system if there is discontent nearly everywhere? Can we focus on that — together — instead?

We’re getting very, very close to having more and more direct conversations like that. Perhaps, if anything, my generation is primed to at least start the uncomfortable conversations.

Heaven knows that’s what’s been happening around kitchen tables throughout the country, with some huge divides between the old and the young on fundamental and even moral issues. Thing is, we’ll need everyone at that table to actively listen and make decisions that work sustainably for everyone now and everyone in the future — no matter how silly it might seem.