My mom came to visit yesterday for my birthday and we did a lot of shopping and talking. Of course it’s not everyday that I see my mom here and talk to her face to face around campus, so while we were talking, I noticed how different my conversations with her were than with my usual scene of friends around here. Obviously they would be different because she is not a Penn State student, and she’s my mom. It is interesting to see why the conversation with her is different than with people my age, who live in the same place as me, and who are not related to me.
For example, I wanted to tell my mom a story about a text that one of my friends sent me. However, before I told her, I realized that I needed to educate her about some texting lingo, otherwise she would not understand my point of view, or even what I was talking about at all! I wanted her to understand, so I needed to first recognize her point of view (that she is not educated about texting lingo) and then work off of that. I need to explain things like this to my friends at times, but most of the time I can assume that they know what I am talking about.
I also felt like my expectations for the conversation were different. My mom and I are very similar in how we grew up and our interests, so when I would tell her about a problem I had, I expected her to listen and give me advice that was almost from a grown-up version of myself. We are not identical though of course and have had diffrent experiences, but knowing her perspective truly makes me think about how I want to be in the future. Among my friends here at college, if I tell them my problems I expect to receive feedback that more closely matches my own experiences because since we all live in the same place and are similar ages, even if we have not had exactly the same experiences, we can still relate to each other easily because our experiences are more similar and we have not lived long enough to fully learn from many of our experiences and reflect on those like my mom could.
I think this sows how important context and audience is when tying to convey a message. Certain people will respond in certain ways based on their experiences, and it is important to know some information about the person you are talking to in order to know how to talk and listen to them.
I found this post to be extremely true! My mom and I are really close to when I come home from college I have to try and fill her in on everything that is going on and I realized the same things that you did. She definitely gives me more mature advice than my friends would and she is never afraid to tell me I am in the wrong and to see things from the other persons point of view. Moms are great.
It’s definitely different interacting with our friends and family back home compared to the friends we have here at school. There’s a certain culture/way of talking/texting here that may not understood back home. I know that my mom would also have a lot of trouble understanding some of my stories from State College without explanation.