This happened a few days ago when I was going to do my taxes with my mom and stepdad. We were talking about my home life and school and whatnot, and they asked me what I wanted to do once I got my credentials. I was vague about it and just straight up told them I don’t like to talk about my future endeavours, but what I did tell them was that I was following in the footsteps of people I admire and hope to achieve what they have. They understood this and thought that was a fine thing to do, although they don’t know the people I admire so maybe their opinions would change, then again I don’t think they’d mind either. Anyway this conversation led to my mother saying how she was talking to my stepdad about me being a communist (I “came out” to her a month ago) and my ideals and how now she believes she might be a communist too.

Her reasoning was that she believes in equality, hates how wealth is currently distributed, and stuff like that. She then said she doesn’t believe a waitress should be paid more than a doctor but the wealth disparity should not be as large as it is. My stepdad then brought up Cuba as an example, they both recently (ish) visited and said that waitresses in Cuba get paid more than doctors because they receive tips. He also said that their tour guide was an engineer who did tours on the side to make tips.

He’s made comments about Cuba before a while back during a conversation about how doctors who immigrate to Canada can’t work as doctors, I then brought up how amazing Cuban doctors are and how they are exported to help in other countries. My stepdad then said that Cuban doctors aren’t allowed to leave Cuba and are essentially extorted by the government (something about how the doctor’s family will be “held hostage” in Cuba if the doctor tries to leave). I was confused by this comment but just brushed it off because what? I’ve never heard of this before and I was not about to entertain it.

Anyway, back to the present, while my mom calls herself a full communist my stepdad says he thinks he’s in the middle because he likes the freedom capitalism grants but hates the inequality. I didn’t say anything but in my head all I could think was “that is an inherent trait of capitalism, though.” My mom says she wants people to be equal and my stepdad made a weird comment about the “Great Reset,” which I don’t know much about but isn’t it a conspiracy theory? He said something about how they are trying to make everyone “equal” so they can’t own property or something like that. I didn’t say anything to this, I didn’t even push him to tell me more. This was just weird all around haha. Again, I didn’t push them on any of this because I am trying to pick and choose my battles very carefully.

I know my stepdad has apparently been doing research into how rich people actually get rich (my immediate thought was “exploitation”) and he is trying to do just that. He is very “obsessed” with becoming rich and with that he is trying to pursue real estate… Like become a landlord company. I have talked about this quite a while ago, maybe a year? And it still bothers me. I don’t feel personally at fault for this and I don’t feel like a hypocrite anymore but this endeavour does mess with me. Thankfully my negative feelings are not lingering, not as much as they used to, but whenever it is talked about I can’t help but feel bad. They told me one day I would inherit this business and I straight up said I don’t think I was interested in that, like at all. They are fine with that, thankfully. I know they want to buy a property close to whichever schools I end up going to for my masters and PhD as they want to both help me as much as they can and do their business thing.

In any case I love my parents but sometimes they confuse the hell out of me.

I thought this would be interesting to share with everyone on the Grad. My school life and family life are weird as hell.

Fun Fact! My mom also loves history documentaries and seems to have a vested and sympathetic interest in the Romanovs (she said Nick was a great dad and how they died was so sad), so her calling herself a communist is a little funny to me but I am more than happy giving her the benefit of the doubt considering all the docs she watches are super western and propagandized to hell. Maybe I can find a documentary that tells the true story about the Romanovs and share it with her.