Dear Readers,
I love a guest post, and it has been a WHILE. Today’s comes from Kerstin, who shares a tale of a house divided.
I’ll be back with an original post on Election Tuesday.
Love,
Beth
My daughter, a junior communications major, uses social media for work, but Facebook is for old people like her grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles worldwide and probably some former teachers and coaches. Every now and again she will post pictures of what she’s doing away at college. We ask if we may tag her in pictures when we are together.
Despite being six hours away, we remain close — probably chat daily, about anything and everything. It’s the relationship we are choosing to have with each other.
Last year, she introduced us to her boyfriend. We had seen him in her group of friends since freshman year and have enjoyed welcoming him to our home during holidays and spending time together when we visit her.
We were introduced to his parents during a tailgating party at their university. He plays football. Despite differences, we have common ground: the kids.
As I was scrolling through social media one night, I saw a meme she had reposted. I treated it like every other political meme I see: I scrolled right past it — not because I agree or disagree with it, but because I’m a fan of hurricane memes and not much more.
It was late. I kind of thought “oh boy” to myself — almost certain she would be inviting comments from those opposed to her views. That’s totally fine, but whose opinion has ever been changed by a meme on Facebook? (Even if it should have?)
I went to sleep and woke up to a message including a screen shot: a response from her boyfriend’s father regarding the meme. Oh boy!
The meme that was reposted by my daughter:
“we cancel out each others votes!!”
“you’re dating a man that doesn’t care if you live or die.”
The response from the father:
“Very extreme, emotional and a false narrative. [My son] would be the first one to put his life on the line to save others. Would you? You now have the right to vote and choose as it should be. It’s a state issue and always has been.”
First things first: the good news.
My daughter’s boyfriend immediately sided with her, and reached out to the dad. I am glad he sides with my daughter, and even more pleased that he didn’t cancel out her vote.
My daughter then responded to the dad rather lengthy and pleasantly unhinged and unfiltered. If he didn’t know where she stood before, he does now. That paired with phone calls from his son should have triggered an apology. Instead he fled into the lie that he thought he was responding to the original poster.
Dude, what a lame lie, how would the original poster know the son? Who knows how old the original poster is? Is that person even a U.S. citizen? Eligible to vote? A simple humble apology would have been a solid choice. But no, the verbal attack was followed up by a lie that he holds onto.
Going forward, I have won the happy couple to host for holidays, vacations and the just because.
But really there are no winners here.
We are going up to the parents’ chili cookoff at the final home game of the season. It’s the weekend after the election.
Note from Beth: That should be fun. I’ll have to check in with Kerstin to see how that went.
Observe and report 