In Chapter 7 of 17 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, educator and entrepreneur Michael Margolis answers "How Are Your Family Relationships Changing as You Get Older?" Margolis notes what has led to an increasing amount of acceptance and reduced conflict levels over time. He shares experiences from a previous marriage that caused family friction and how things have changed and improved since that time.
Michael Margolis is founder and president of Get Storied, an education and publishing platform dedicated to teaching the world how to think in narrative. He earned a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology from Tufts University.
Transcript:
Erik Michielsen: How are your family relationships changing as you get older?
Michael Margolis: A lot less conflict in my family relationships. I would say it’s interesting, it’s been a much greater sense of acceptance of my parents and my brother and likewise the way that I feel with my parents and brother, you know, accepting me as well. Yeah, it’s become a lot easier as time has gone on. I mean, the last relationship I was married for a few years and during that relationship I was with a partner that took a very antagonistic sort of place with my family. So, that I think is something to be very sensitive to and you don’t even realize it because you're trying to please your partner and all the issues that they have with your family, you sort of take it on and I probably created more drama than necessarily needed to be there.
So, it’s helped to also have a partner now that is far more -- a far calmer disposition in one that she gets along really well with my family and I get along well with hers. So, it’s just been a place of easiness. You know, I never forget though one of my favorite sayings that somebody taught me in my mid-20’s was, you know “Michael, if you think you're enlightened just go spend a weekend with your family”, right? So, all of those patterns, it doesn’t how old you get, you will always be your parents’ child, right? You’ll always be your, you know, I’ll always be my brother’s younger brother.
So, those dynamics are always there but I think as we grow older there’s just, at least for me it’s been a mellowing and a greater sense of acceptance of each other and being able to just spend time appreciating each other.