No Place Like Home for the Holidays

I'm FaceBook friends with a former student of mine who is now in college. In general I can't keep up with the number of links and photos she shares, but I did get a laugh from one of her status posts today and the subsequent comments from her other collegiate friends:

two hours before my flight back to school, my younger brother and I get into an argument over community building. we aren't talking currently. I don't know if we will be by 2:30pm. I guess there's always the next holiday break.

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My brother and I got into an argument about Penn State and the male complex. Then we argued about rape and how he thinks women more often than not put themselves in a position to be raped. We're also not talking; see my status "it amazes me how unintelligent people are"

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i got in a heated argument with my sister and mom when i tried to explain how miss piggy and amy adams in the new muppets movie were weak female characters because their stories revolved entirely around the leading male characters, they totally didn't get it

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I got into an argument with some friends online about whether using a negative cultural stereotype about a minority group for a joke on a billboard is acceptable; didn't make any headway either.

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I'm not allowed to talk politics in my family. To them "liberal arts" = talking about feelings instead of talking about things that matter in society.

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my brother and I got into an argument about the Occupy protests. he currently thinks I'm a communist hippie and won't do anything good with my life.

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My grandpa made a joking comment about transsexual housing as I sat there awkwardly. I still don't think that whole side of my family knows I'm liberal. :P

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my brother made the statement "i think child abuse is over talked about" while we were at a mexican restaurant. yelling ensued over mole.

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This weekend my grandpa started talking about what is really wrong with society. i got up from the table and went to play with the cat.

I hope those kids learn to agree to disagree, because I know from experience that such lively debates don't just go away, even in the most like-minded of families. My brother and I also kicked off the holiday with a friendly disagreement, and ours was actually about the value of a college education-- is it an over-priced credential or accurate indicator of employable worth?

If you know that I am an educator, you might be surprised about which side I took in our discussion, but for the record, after reading these comments, I may just have to change my position.