Gift link: Life is Too Short to Fight with Family

[Anonymous]

Happy Thanksgiving!
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/26/opinion/thanksgiving-family-fighting.html?unlocked_article_code=1.4U8.DH3l.iOT9SLkLA09G&smid=nytcore-ios-share

[Anonymous]

Thank you for this.

[Anonymous]

Meh. Kind of pollyanna-ish, IMO.

I take objection to this:

"Or try this thought experiment: Imagine if you had a year left to live. Would you want to spend your last Thanksgiving resenting your father’s politics? Or avoiding your sister for something she said last Christmas? Or would you rather find the grace to focus on the positives? Perhaps your father, for all his social-media-fueled hot takes, has mastered the art of carving a turkey. Your sister might be judgmental but you love her holiday-themed nails. Accepting what you can’t change doesn’t mean you’re endorsing their beliefs — it simply means doing everything you can, right now, to embrace the positives and look past the negatives."

Sorry, but if this father's "politics" is spewing hate-filled bigoted statements and insulting others who have a different opinion, then I don't want him at my table no matter how well he carves the turkey.

And if that sister takes those perfectly cute fingernails and metaphorically scratches people's eyes out due to her jealousy and vindictiveness, I don't want to be around her either.

The sad fact remains that there are people who have very few redeeming qualities and quite often they may be in your own family.

[Anonymous]

This article is a bunch of nonsense.

However well intentioned you are, you shouldn’t spend Thanksgiving trying to convince your parents that it’s time for them to sell the house and move into assisted living. Let them make their own mistakes, even if you might have to deal with the consequences. Your parents are adults. Give them the dignity of their own experience.

While Thanksgiving Day isn't the time for this conversation, it is fine to encourage parents to downsize and move to a safer living space. Especially if me dealing with the consequences = putting my job in jeopardy to take time off to care for them after they fall on the stairs.

Would you want to spend your last Thanksgiving resenting your father’s politics?

Well if I only have a year to live because my father's politics limited my access to health care or the amount of spending/research into the condition that is taking me out, then yeah, I'm going to spend it resenting him and the rest of his ilk.

[Anonymous]

If someone’s “politics” directly harms others or bars them from civil rights/human rights, yes, I would rather not spend my time on Earth with them. So I’m good.

[Anonymous]

I don’t believe in spending time with people I wouldn’t choose to spend time with - family or not. Just because someone is family doesn’t mean they are a decent or a good person. And even if they are a “decent” person, if I just don’t like them, why would I force myself to spend time with them when there are many other people I could be spending time with? This transcends politics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If someone’s “politics” directly harms others or bars them from civil rights/human rights, yes, I would rather not spend my time on Earth with them. So I’m good.

yeah. I had the same reaction. Some people are kind of irredeemable. There’s something about “sure she’s a Nazi. It have you tasted that Mac and cheese she brought?”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If someone’s “politics” directly harms others or bars them from civil rights/human rights, yes, I would rather not spend my time on Earth with them. So I’m good.

yeah. I had the same reaction. Some people are kind of irredeemable. There’s something about “sure she’s a Nazi. It have you tasted that Mac and cheese she brought?”

Nazi has to be the most overused word here. You literally don't know any Nazis.

[Anonymous]

More like life is too short to spend it with horrible people just because you are technically family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t believe in spending time with people I wouldn’t choose to spend time with - family or not. Just because someone is family doesn’t mean they are a decent or a good person. And even if they are a “decent” person, if I just don’t like them, why would I force myself to spend time with them when there are many other people I could be spending time with? This transcends politics.

This attitude is a big problem these days. Because they are family, that’s why. Across cultures, across centuries, this has meant something. It doesn’t suddenly not mean anything because you don’t like it. Life isn’t always fun and about your own personal preferences.
I mean, do you feel the same about your own kids? Surely they aren’t always likable or easy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t believe in spending time with people I wouldn’t choose to spend time with - family or not. Just because someone is family doesn’t mean they are a decent or a good person. And even if they are a “decent” person, if I just don’t like them, why would I force myself to spend time with them when there are many other people I could be spending time with? This transcends politics.

This attitude is a big problem these days. Because they are family, that’s why. Across cultures, across centuries, this has meant something. It doesn’t suddenly not mean anything because you don’t like it. Life isn’t always fun and about your own personal preferences.
I mean, do you feel the same about your own kids? Surely they aren’t always likable or easy?

I guess someone should have told my uncle not to molest his sister, my aunt, Because Family. I guess someone should have told my grandparents to do more about it than stern talking-tos and a meeting with the priest, Because Family.

Across cultures, across centuries, family members have harmed and abused one another, but all is meant to be silenced and swept under the rug. You’re mad because many of us won’t put up with horrible behavior, whether it is abuse or homophobia or xenophobia, just because family “means something.” When what it means is harmful and oppressive, we’re done here. Thanks and have a great day.

[Anonymous]

I feel like people who write articles like these have no relatives who have done such awful things that you never want to break bread with them again. Or maybe they do, and this is how they rationalize it.

And with regard to refusing to have conversations about elderly parents downsizing, they probably have money to throw at the problem, are martyrs, or have closer siblings who take on most of the care.

[Anonymous]

What if I'm fighting with siblings who don't ever visit our parents? Am I allowed to treat them like we only have a year left to live because nobody would see their selfish aholes anyways?

I'm doing all the parent care and visiting. I don't care to be nice to checked out siblings. They are the ones who should read this article and realize they don't have time left with our parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If someone’s “politics” directly harms others or bars them from civil rights/human rights, yes, I would rather not spend my time on Earth with them. So I’m good.

yeah. I had the same reaction. Some people are kind of irredeemable. There’s something about “sure she’s a Nazi. It have you tasted that Mac and cheese she brought?”

Nazi has to be the most overused word here. You literally don't know any Nazis.

PP may not, but I do. I have a sibling who gleefully brags to others about their possession of Nazi war items and uses the absolute worst epithets about minorities and religious groups - blaming them for all the problems in the world.

I completely distanced myself years ago and I don't shy away from telling people why.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I feel like people who write articles like these have no relatives who have done such awful things that you never want to break bread with them again. Or maybe they do, and this is how they rationalize it.

And with regard to refusing to have conversations about elderly parents downsizing, they probably have money to throw at the problem, are martyrs, or have closer siblings who take on most of the care.

This, so this. I am going to say something that will sound extreme and dramatic-I think estrangements are probably preventing saving lives for those who chose to distance-ranging from preventing suicide to preventing life threatening illness. Emotional and verbal abuse over enough years take their toll.