Blogpost 2 – First draft

Problem

Dear readers, how have you been?

Recently, my mother changed to a smart phone as she wants to catch up with the technology and times. The main thing that she wanted to do with the phone was to have more interaction with us, her children. Therefore, I introduced her to Facebook.

However, my mother and I had an argument over a Facebook post soon after teaching her how to use the application. She came across a post which shows a picture of a cat, but it has as many legs as a millipede has. She was so excited and she showed it to me proudly saying that if it was not for Facebook, she would not have such information and knowledge and thanked me profusely.

At that instance, I was lost for words. To laugh or to cry? In the next moment, my mouth took over my mind, harsh words came out without hesitation. "Why are you so naive? Are you sure you are my mother?" I exclaimed, bursting out in laughter. Within the split second, I felt pain on my cheeks. With my eardrums ringing, I read "so much for raising you" from her lips. Yes, I got slapped.

I did not feel that I have done anything wrong. The way that we communicate within the family is always very direct and all of us were very prone to teasing. I teased my mum like how I normally would, but I received a totally unexpected response from her. Was it because I unknowingly talked slightly harsher today? It was because I was too shocked at how my mother would even believe that a cat has as many legs as a centipede has. If it was a case of a cat having one or two extra legs, I would not have the same reaction. Or was it because my mum could not receive my message well with her own reasons?

Solution

Thank you so much for all of the comments. I like Alfin’s comment especially as he mentioned about having to pause and be grounded as one of the resolving conflict tips. It also reminded me that in our Chinese culture, manners and upbringing is of utmost importance.  I should not have let my mouth took over my mind. Thinking about how she took care of me, being my first teacher and being my mentor in my early life. I took a moment to calm down and thought about the 6 seconds model. I thought about what I have done that caused my mother to react this way. She must have been very disappointed when I slipped my mouth, implying that she is stupid. I realised that I was being very ungrateful towards her, and thus apologised to her.

My mother spent so much of her hard earn money to send me to school, to grow together with my classmates. And now that I have an education, I looked down on her for being "outdated". I should have had better EQ to be patient with her like how she was with me when I was a child that knew nothing.

Subsequently, my mum and I sat down together to talk about the gimmicks and danger that could be found online. I reminded her that not everything online, can be trusted and validation is necessary. She had to go through the process of thinking, deciphering and researching before believing an article. My mother then became grateful towards me for helping her open up to the social world. She eventually shared with me that she was also sorry for giving me a slap, letting anger took over her and it pained her heart. Then we gave each other a hug and said goodnight!

All in all, I feel that even though we will always tease each other and say things that the other person does not like to hear, we must always know when to stop. “We do it because we may not be aware of how our own behavior contributes to interpersonal problems.”(Bellafiore, 2017). Therefore, one should always be conscious of the limits. Taking my conflict as an example, it would be to know that I should not have made fun of her for giving me education. Through this step of identifying, we would be able to prevent unhappiness within the relationship with others.
References:
Bellafiore, D. (2016, April 16). Interpersonal Conflict and Effective Communication. Retrieved July 08, 2017, from http://www.drbalternatives.com/articles/cc2.html

(edited on 11/7/2017)