Thanksgiving, Silence, and the Cost of Avoidance

During this holiday season, we are re-releasing some of our most popular episodes about conflict in relationships from the archive. A Thanksgiving blowup in 1989 shattered one family and shaped a lifetime of how sociologist Heath Hoffman understands conflict. In this raw and candid conversation, Hoffman traces how antagonism, avoidance, and inherited communication habits echo into adulthood. He opens up about wrestling with his own “uncivil” tendencies, the shame that follows, and why silence can feel just as painful as shouting. This episode is a gripping look at how family fights become family legacies and what it takes to break the cycle.

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Transcript

Michael Lee : [00:00:00] When we disagree is a show about arguments, how we have them, why we have them, and their impact on our relationships and ourselves.

How does arguing to build up the process, the aftermath? Affect your life. Have you ever had a disagreement that you thought about ruminated over even celebrated long after it had ended? This show is about stories of arguments, ones we won, ones we lost, and one whose outcome was unclear or even confusing.

I'm Michael Lee, professor of Communication and the director of the Civility Initiative at the College of Charleston. Today's guest is Heath Hoffman, a professor of sociology. Heath, tell us an argument story. 

Heath Hoffman: Well, thank you for having me, Mike. I am not directly a participant in this argument story, but I have been profoundly impacted by it.

So in 1989 at Thanksgiving, I think most people [00:01:00] can relate to there being some family conflict over the holidays. My brother had been recently married and showed up with his wife at Thanksgiving, which the holidays had never been always happy in the Hoffman household. But this particular holiday, the dinner, I think was.

Three or four hours late, and by the time my brother and his wife arrived, my parents were in a very sour mood and proceeded to blame my brother for a whole host of family problems, resulting in a big blowout. My sister-in-law crying. I ran out of the house down the street 'cause my sister-in-law. I grew up two or three houses away from where my parents lived, so lifelong neighbors and friends.

So I went out and as I usually did, handled the conflict by shooting some baskets in front of my sister-in-law's house. She came down in tears and [00:02:00] joined me, and that led to a rift in my family that continues today. 

Michael Lee : If you don't mind sharing, what were the accusations? What was the kind of back and forth in what sounds like a pretty disputatious event?

Heath Hoffman: It was, so I won't go into specific details about the accusations, but they were. Unfair and untrue. Ultimately I think that, that I grew up in a household with very uncivil discourse, and I think that fight was a, an example of a larger pattern in which my parents would. Yell at neighbors I would get in trouble and the people whom I had harmed mm-hmm.

Would get yelled at by my parents as a means of addressing the conflict because their son could do, do no wrong. And so for me, there was a, there was powerful lesson in terms of, it was just a lesson in uncivil discourse. Mm-hmm. [00:03:00] And so my brother still does not speak to my parents, so every Thanksgiving is a little bit.

Challenging because there's that really unhealthy memory and I don't talk to my parents to this day. 

Michael Lee : So thus far I've heard you sketch two models about your approach to argument or your approach to disagreement. One was your parents who sound, to be frank, antagonistic, 

Heath Hoffman: I think that's a good word. 

Michael Lee : And then yours to put a label on it that you might reject would be more evasive or avoidant.

You leave and go shoot basketball. 

Heath Hoffman: I think when I was younger. That I was more avoidant. Now, I think I unfortunately do still have some of that uncivil tendencies where I, I can be more aggressive and more irrational and antagonistic. So let's stay 

Michael Lee : with the, the argument over Thanksgiving and then I want to come back to the kind of long-term dispute because what you're describing is something I can very much identify with.

[00:04:00] So the dispute over Thanksgiving, how does your brother handle this? How did your new sister-in-law handle this? Did they, I mean, your sister-in-law came to shoot basketball with you. What'd your brother do? 

Heath Hoffman: He stayed behind, continued the arguing, and I think eventually left. And they, you know, they were very sweet to me.

I was in my teens, so I wasn't com, you know. A little kid, but they comforted me. 'cause I was really upset by that. My brother was the world to me. So to see my brother treated in a way that I, I, I mean, I could visually, I could see it, I could hear it, that my brother was being treated unfairly and so, but didn't have the power to counter the parents.

But my brother and his wife tried to console me and make me feel better. Eventually my. Sister-in-law convinced my brother to reengage with my parents. And that resulted in, you know, a brief moment of, Hey, it's good to see you, we love you. And then another big blow up where [00:05:00] my brother was accused of being too big for his britches and short, and 

Michael Lee : I'm, as you're telling the story, I'm realizing that.

Ineffectiveness of some communication strategies to overcome conflict. Communication is a way to resolve conflict. So as you're telling the story and talking about years of not talking to your parents or your brother, not talking to your parents, some part of me is coming up that's thinking, why couldn't somebody just quote, be the bigger person and.

Get through this. Why couldn't the hatchet just get buried to borrow a phrase? And I'm anticipating you saying, well, it just wouldn't have worked. And eventually we just had to give up on that strategy. 

Heath Hoffman: I think my parents are too stubborn to admit that they made a mistake. I mean, they have never, not that I'm treating this like Dr.

Phil, but they've never really admitted that they're wrong in any aspect. I mean, they're. There are other [00:06:00] conflicts with me directly where I was a participant, where I, I did make some mistakes, but they were clearly, as the adults should have behaved better and been better role models in terms of dealing with things that I was directly involved in.

But they didn't, and that's just a pattern of behavior that. They've engaged in, I think that reflects the behavior of their parents and very dysfunctional. I mean, they're probably better than what they grew up with. So I guess there's been progress. But I, I do think that some uncivil discourse that I can point to in my adult life is, mm-hmm.

I didn't, didn't just stumble upon it. I grew up surrounded 

Michael Lee : by it. Stay with that for a second, if you don't mind. When you have felt antagonistic, either justifiably so, or unjustifiably. So do you then reflect on it after the fact and feel like, well, here I am just recreating the quote unquote sins of the father.

Yes. Sins of the mother, as it [00:07:00] were, with shame and regret. Yeah. And then what do you do? 

Heath Hoffman: I think I've gotten better at apologizing, but then sometimes that's too little, too late that there's harm done. I think especially with colleagues, there have been instances professionally where I have not responded or handled conflict in a way that I'm proud of.

I've always, with a few exceptions, gone back and apologized to those folks. Some I don't think deserve an apology, but even in some cases where I've been in the wrong and I haven't handled things the way I want to. Mm-hmm. The way I think is right, different than how my parents did. I will still, with a few exceptions, I have apologized and, but that's still, you know, it, to know that that's in you is unsettling.

Michael Lee : Do you think that because it is, as you say within you, that there's some part of you that's overly critical of your style of. Conflict or argumentative combat. And is quick to shame, quick to regret, or do you think that you've got a pretty fair [00:08:00] assessment of when, where the line is and when you've crossed it?

Heath Hoffman: I think I have. I think I am very critical of myself. I am my own worst critic. I think it's true of most of us. I think when. We talk about civil discourse, I feel like I would not be a model for civil discourse. I don't know that that is my strength. Especially in a context where we have a significant percentage of the American population that doesn't believe in facts and and science.

And, and that seems like a really important starting point, is to have a shared set of beliefs and values on which to have a discussion. Yeah. Yeah, so I am very critical of myself. 

Michael Lee : The kind of last topic I wanna broach is fundamentally the opposite of what we've been talking about. We've been talking about these sort of sins of commission, the errors we make through speech antagonistic, aggressive speech, the regrets we have because of what we've said.

But you've also sketched something that has a powerful impact on all of us, [00:09:00] which is silence. What's totally unsaid. You've sketched years of silence between yourself, your folks, your brother, your folks, and this kind of icing out strategy. How does silence stick with you? 

Heath Hoffman: I think it's really uncomfortable because I think as a, you know, for that family argument in 1989 I think a frustration is I don't have power.

I didn't have power, and I don't have power to express how it impacted me. And so I, I'm uncomfortable with silence now when there's a disagreement because I think because of that event in 1989 and even other. Instances where I can point to disagreements with my parents as having a profound impact on me where I didn't feel like there was a much power or value in my voice to affect change or that was valued.

And so now when there's silence or. Ignoring a [00:10:00] conflict. I get real anxious about that. Like I want to have that conversation perhaps in a, sometimes a compulsive, unhealthy way where sometimes silence and letting things go is the right path forward. 

Michael Lee : Sitting in silence is difficult in those moments is difficult.

Heath, thank you so much for coming on when we disagree. Thank 

Heath Hoffman: you for 

Michael Lee : having me.

When we Disagree is recorded at the College of Charleston with creator and host Michael Lee. Recording and sound engineering by Jesse k and Lance Laidlaw. Reach out to us at When We disagree@gmail.com.