Opinion By J1 Reporter Alena Kehm

The other day my family sat at the dinner table. The usual topics circulated: Sports (specifically March Madness, Cooper Flagg and Duke’s astonishing loss to Houston), schedules, poor attempts at jokes, and a few digs at those failed jokes (all out of love of course). All seemed well and good. No major arguments had erupted, and my brothers’ bickering was limited to just a low hum. 

Finally, we reached a topic that one of my brothers’ was particularly passionate about. In fact it went further than passion. He felt pure hatred. His words were a machete and he was slicing through the conversation. And as I was listening, I couldn’t help but think that what he was saying sounded familiar. Then it hit me. My mom talks in just the same way about the same topic. It made me uneasy. Uncomfortable. 

Did my brother actually think those things? Or one day did he listen to my mom, and did those things seep into his brain, gradually taking over his own opinions, eroding his own thoughts and feelings until…BAM. He was a carbon copy of my mother. 

It’s scary to think about. But unfortunately I’m forced to believe that it happens all the time.

We. 

Become. 

Our. 

Parents…

Ew.

The two people that embarrass us and make us cringe the most, are the people that we derive our opinions from? 

This leads me to a Public Service announcement: IGNORE YOUR PARENTS. (I know you probably are already a pro at ignoring your dad when he’s asking for help in the garage and you could go to the Olympics for pretending to “forget” to put away your laundry, but that’s not the kind of ignoring that I’m talking about. Ok?) 

I’m talking about politics, people, restaurants, movies, you name it. Listen to what your parents think, but then figure it out for yourself. When we were kids we needed to soak in everything our parents said so that we didn’t get hit by buses for not looking both ways and stuff. But now it’s different. We know how to function, but instead we hold on to the habits we had as kids. We take our parents’ opinion as fact and neglect to figure out what we really like, don’t like, want and don’t want. 

The world is better in diversity. The world is better when everyone’s not a carbon copy of the people they grew up with. So figure out what you want and what you believe. In the act of ignoring your parents you’re actually making the world a bit better.