There is no family immune to conflict. The problem, then, is not that conflicts happen; it is how we handle them when they occur, how we let these disagreements and miscommunications take on a life of their own. As Bruce Springsteen sings in “Tucson Train”: We fought hard over nothin’ We fought till nothin’ remained But more hauntingly, he talks about how long he ended up carrying that nothin’—something we’re all guilty of. So much of the stuff we get upset about doesn’t even matter . . . and then because we get upset about it, we end up saying things that do matter and can never be unsaid. We fight over nothing and destroy everything we care about most.
You will want a crowded table when you’re old, we’ve said. Well, that’s going to require some delayed gratification now. Some restraint now. It means letting things go. It means admitting you were wrong. It means telling your kids, your spouse, your own parents, that you’re sorry. It means accepting apologies from them too. It means showing them how to patch things up with their siblings, with other people.
We can’t let arguments take on lives of their own and risk their taking the joy out of our lives. Life is too short, family is too precious, to destroy over nothing.