How Do You Know When You Can Make Fun of a Family Member?

Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hi, Martha. This is Raffaella from Wasa, Wisconsin.

Hi, Raffaella. Welcome. What’s up? What can we do for you?

Well, I was thinking about this the other day, as many subjects seem to come up among family members. I’m married, so there’s the other family. And when we speak about the foibles, the idiosyncrasies of family, I’ve wondered if there’s an unwritten rule about who gets to bring those things up, because we can be sensitive.

It seems that generally one’s own family has, shall I call it, the right to bring up their own family’s oddities or funny stories or maybe even embarrassing things. But I wonder if there’s a law about that, about who breaches the subject, or is it subject to etiquette or is that dead?

Wow.

So are you talking about your spouse at these family gatherings or somebody else?

Well, it could be my spouse’s family. It could be another friend in their own family, extended family. What do you mean by foibles and idiosyncrasies? Are we talking about the way that they sing, or are we talking about things like not doing their fair share of work around the house?

Oh, well, that could have come up, too. Well, you know how Uncle Bob always talks like this or his funny manner of responding to things or his funny things people do. Like, for instance, my father-in-law always says $14.5 million when he wants to talk about something that’s a large amount. But it could be a little quirky things people do or things people say. I don’t know if that helps you understand what I’m getting at.

Yeah, that really does. Thank you.

Okay.

So have you been caught out by this, where you were at a family gathering, and you said something about someone that you’re not related to, and then were made to feel uncomfortable?

Yeah, I tend to do that once in a while.

Yeah, or maybe joined in in razzing or teasing that was already going on, and yet you weren’t really welcomed as part of that?

At times. Yes, and at times, no. Other times, no. It kind of depends on the person. You eventually learn kind of where your boundaries are, shall I call it. And that’s an important point of what you’re talking about here. And this is a little linguistic, and it is a little something else.

Okay.

The linguistic part of this plugs into what are known as in-group and out-group dynamics. And in language, it manifests by the language that we share and don’t share. And so in a family or family groups, we have all these in-jokes or we have the little names for things that maybe a child coined years ago and that the family shares and that only they use. But other things belong to those in-group dynamics, too. And these are our understanding of each other, status and hierarchy and authority and respect and also shared histories that no matter how well you know your spouse, you maybe don’t know everything about them. And you might not know, even if you’ve known your in-laws 30 years, you still maybe don’t know them in the same way that the other people do. And it can seem unfair for them to exclude you, but it really is completely fair, at least in the power dynamics of families, for them to exclude you. And that’s kind of hard to accept sometimes.

It can be. But at the same time, when I’ve been called out, I realize it’s just not my place. So I learn my boundaries better. Sure.

Yeah, you learned that there’s acceptable and unacceptable. But boy, that feeling of when they finally do invite you in and make you feel as part of the family, that feeling that washes over you is the most glorious thing in the world, isn’t it?

It can be, yeah. You know, there’s maybe things that I wish they’d include me in that make me part of, I’ll use your word, the in group. I like that. But I felt like I’ve been in the out group. And now I’ve been invited into that conversation or it’s just they open the conversation and you discern whether or not, okay, is this where I can talk or not? You just have to like weigh it. And it’s often better not to and just listen.

Yeah, the talking is just one manifestation of that emotional intimacy that may include or exclude you. And whether or not you seem presumptuous isn’t up to you. It’s up to them. And no matter how hard you try, you may never meet the mark that they’ve set.

And that mark is so invisible, isn’t it? That mark is something you can’t see. Only they can see it. And it’s so extremely clear to them and not to you.

Yeah, that’s well said. I agree. That social permission is invisible until they point it out to you, and then it goes invisible again.

Right, right.

Okay. Raffaella, thank you for broaching this topic with us. This is a really good one, and I know a lot of people have encountered this.

I think so.

Thank you. That’s kind of you to say. Thanks for taking my call.

Bye-bye now.

All right.

Bye-bye.

We would love to hear about those difficult family conversations that you had where maybe you didn’t feel like it was your place to say something, but you did. And then something happened and maybe it was hard to get out of it. Or maybe you found a solution and you worked it out. And those are wonderful moments and we’d love to hear about them. The hard ones, the easy ones, 877-929-9673.