Personal Case and Analysis, Essay Example

Background of My Communication and My Conflict with My Mother

I believe I fully understand the value of making conscious effort to cooperate with others and comprehend their feelings and thoughts. In most of my life and interactions, in fact, I rarely encounter any issues in communication, and I believe this is due to my maintaining a sense of the importance of these efforts. This is not to present myself as overly giving; the reality is that better understanding eases circumstances for myself as it does for others. To that end, I consistently do my utmost to perceive how another’s intentions, feelings, or thoughts may be initially unclear to me.

Unfortunately, my commitment to this behavior does not usually translate to my communication with my mother. Levels of conflict, in fact, have marked our otherwise affectionate and mutually respectful relationship, and a recent episode perfectly illustrates this. I am currently working on my MBA course of study, and there is for me the option to return to my native China immediately after completing the course. My inclination, however, is to remain in the United States for at least an additional year and further my education – and experience – in an internship. My mother strongly disagrees, as she is concerned with the tendency of Chinese companies to hire new graduates. She expresses her belief that my staying in the U.S. will then lessen my employment options when I return to China. Conversely, my feeling is that gaining real work experience here will greatly go to my advantage, no matter where I eventually secure a position. We have discussed this more than once, and my mother invariably fails to understand my motives. She tends to see and treat me as a child, and I believe this is due to insecurity; she feels that, if I make my own decisions, I will be an adult and no longer be her child. This translates to her not listening when we speak. She “shuts off” because listening may expose her to a reality she does not want to face.

Internal Dialogue

This is how she begins – so typical, going straight to the negative and making me seem foolish.

I react too aggressively, but she brings that out in me.

As usual, she denies whatever I have to say! Why can’t she try to understand me as a person?

I try, but I plead, and I’m too intense.

What makes her think she knows the world of business better than I do? She is so locked into her own thinking, it’s ridiculous. She thinks I’m just a little girl who knows nothing about the world or the job market.

She is. I’m trying to not insult, but she needs to understand the reality. Instead, she refuses to look at new ideas. I try to be logical and turn her away from the flaws in her argument.

What? What has that got to do with anything?

It’s getting hard to be calm and patient. I’m trying to not lose control.

All right then, here it is. This isn’t about me and my future at all. It’s about what I owe you and how you think I should feel about China. There is no respect for me here!

I can’t help it. Let’s say the truth, then.

Hardly! This is all about how I’m hurting you.

If you would only listen, you’d see that it’s not about my love or respect for you at all!

Actual Dialogue

Mother: You are still thinking you will waste a whole year in the United States?

Me: It won’t be a waste – I can get valuable experience.

Mother: This makes no sense.

Me: It makes perfect sense. Don’t you understand that having work behind me will help me in China, or anywhere?

Mother: No. What I understand is how Chinese business thinks, and they want people who are fresh and prepared to take the good jobs THEY offer.

Me: I think you’re being old-fashioned. The world is changing, and any Chinese company is going to be MORE interested in someone with education AND experience in the U.S.

Mother: What you’re telling me is that going home really means nothing to you.

Me: No, mother. What I’m telling you is that my life and my career mean more to me. This isn’t about China – it’s about me making choices that will do me good.

Mother: We sacrificed so that you would have a fine education. We never thought it would mean you turning your back on our home, and ignoring why we sacrificed to begin with.

Me: So you’re saying that my life is my own, as long as I do what you expect?

Mother: No, no. I’m only saying that you are hurting yourself in this choice.

Ladder of Inference Analysis

Observable Data

I clearly perceive behaviors and expressions indicating assumptions made on both sides. Both my mother and myself are arguing from widely differing contexts, which in turn goes to the values and assumption we are each making. If all of this is resting on actual information, that information is being ignored or reinterpreted by both of us, and in an exponential way. My mother blocks anything in which I express myself as an independent adult. She also relies completely on fixed ideas she has always held. For my part, I am conflcted; I am seeking to establish my own identity, yet I realize that this upsets my mother, and the primary issue of how I should proceed becomes lost

Select Data

The most critical element here is the absence of actual communication, based on my mother’s failure to comprehend the realities of the modern world. However this failure occurs, it is the core data because our conflict is fueled by it. My mother’s Chinese heritage plays into this; she is always mistrusting of whatever choices do not refer back to China, and my education in the U.S. has bever been truly understood by her. This translates to gher persistent impulse to treat me like a child and guide me to what she believes is a better choice.

Add Meaning

My mother’s consistent behavior and motivations are deeply rooted in her fears. Ignorance is also a factor; she knows little to nothing of U.S. experience or my potentials here, yet she is unwilling to move beyond this because she is trapped by her two insecurites: that I am growing up and do not need her, and that there can be no real safety or future that does not involve China. For me, there is then an even stronger impulse to defy because it is important to me to establish my own identity as an adult.

Make Assumptions

My mother clearly thinks she knows what is best for me. She is frightened of “losing her child” and she fears that I am uninterested in our culture and past. I am failing at showing respect in her eyes, and this in turn worsens the conflict because I am the one who feels disrespected.

Draw Conclusions

This appears to be a deadlock because both of us are rigidly attached to our own ideas. If the communication proceeds in the same ways, there can be no change or mutual understanding. Consequently, the approach must be altered.

Adopt Beliefs

I love and respect my mother, as I know she loves and respects me on a deep level. This conflict is painful and unnecessary, and I hold to the belief that it can be ended. I cannot accept that a difference in viewpoint may come between us because my relationship with my mother is too important. I must be treated like an adult; this is also essential to me. It is then necessary that a way be found to recocncile these beliefs and needs.

Take Action

My mother and I have differing interpretations of the information beneath the conflict, which create our varying definitions of it. It is, plainly, not enough for me to have facts regarding internships and the business world on my side, because this is not about “sides.” I must comprehend that, in a very real sense, my mother’s views exist for her as information as well, no matter how I see them as unfounded opinion. These are the facts in which she believes, and we cannot communicate unless I acknowledge this reality and seek to move us both forward from it.

My plan of action must then rely on active listening. Even as I seem to think I know what is motivating my mother’s resistance, my task, then, to facilitate this.

Spoken Dialogue

Mother: Are you still planning on wasting a year in the U.S

Me: Why do you feel it’s a waste of time?

Mother: It’s obvious. Those companies won’t want to hire sa foreigner, AND you’ll be missing opportunities in China.

Me: Mom, don’t you think work in the U.S. will help me anywhere I go?

Mother: So China means nothing to you.

Me: That’s not true, really. It means a lot to me. This is more about my future.

Mother: But you future is in opportunities in China!

Me: Not necessarily, Mom. After all, you always taught me that opportunities come from being most prepared. This way, I’ll be more prepared for whatever is available in my career.

Mother: That makes sense, I suppose. But China means little to you, then? It’s all about a job? What about your father and me?

Me: Oh, mom, please understand how much you all mean to me. In fact, I know we care so no job or country can hurt our family.

Meaning and Effect

We start out as always, but I try to shift.

She begins in the old way.

I deflect, seeking her feelings.

She is at least direct here, which helps me better respond.

I turn it around to inquire more of her feelings.

Again, her fears surface; I address this head-on.

She tries to return to her old views.

I turn this to express how my plans reflect her own support.

I then take advantage of her willingness to hear and affirm our connection, stressing the priority of our family.

Reflection

Having proceeded with my plan, I am able to relate that is was successful, at least to an extent.

I initiated a conversation with my mother not directly going to my plans and all, and instead engaged her ideas of what she had always seen my life as being. If this appears to have been manipulative or calculated, I can honestly assert that the process was authentic because, as soon as she began to respond – cautiously, at first, for my mother is not given to open expression of her feelings – I was genuinely taken in by the force and authenticity of her feelings and thoughts. Through these, I gained a valuable sense of just how fearful she was for my future. For her generation and for a woman of her experiences, it is paramount to secure a safe place and job. Most importantly, however, my efforts to engage her and to primarily listen revealed to me that fear, more than anything, is responsible for her determination that I share her views regarding a U.S. internship.

This in turn leads to my reflection, which is simply expressed. I believe, having conducted this exercise, that there is immense value in stepping back and examining all the factors going to problems between people, no matter the degree of their connection. Done with any effort at all, some objectivity is in place, and this allows for deeper levels of understanding. It also permits new possibilities in communication itself, as the traps of inference and assumption are weakened in the process. Even the most effective communication, however, cannot alter what and who a person is, and that identity is in fact created by belief systems. In plain terms, and the many advantages of analysis and strategy notwithstanding, I have come to appreciate that, in some cases at least, personal identity must dictate the nature of communication.