good argument unfortunately your mother

After graduating high school, I thought I was ready for the world. I didn't care to hear too much of what my mom had to say because I knew it all. Unfortunately, before realizing I didn't know it all, I experienced unnecessary arguments with my mother. It took dealing with real-life situations to understand mom was right I was wrong and arguing with her was definitely not a wise decision.

As I got older and wiser, I started to practice a few steps that helped me avoid arguing with my mom and instead address her as a mature adult.

Ask yourself if the subject matter is worth the argument

Many times the issue at hand is not worth fighting about. In some instances, we realize the argument was silly after the fact. If you sense the topic is going to lead to something serious, perhaps it would be a good idea to back away from it. Figure out another way to address the matter; a way that will diffuse any possibilities of an argument.

Take a step back when voices begin to soar

The moment you hear your voices are about to spiral, the best thing to do is pull back from the discussion. One thing I learned is when I sense something more than a discussion is about to occur I will say, "Let's relax. There's no need to raise our voices. We need to focus and work together."� By saying this, I have been successful in defusing an argument.

Remain calm

If you know the topic you are about to tackle may not be well received by your mother, then prepare yourself to maintain composure. She may be angry, but if she captures how calm you are, chances are she will remain calm, too.

Even though you may not want to hear what your mom has to convey, listen anyway. She may say things you do not necessarily agree with, but at least you are giving her the opportunity to share her thoughts. Let her know you understand where she is coming from even though you do not agree.

Politely walk away

If the discussion turns into a quarrel, excuse yourself. Use the approach such as, "Mom, I need a minute. Please excuse me."� Once the tempers have been tamed, then revisit the discussion. Apologize for being disrespectful. Sometimes a mini break is all that is needed to avoid arguments, and you can now approach the discussion with a clear mind.

It is only natural to view issues differently than your mother. But, it is important never to lose respect for her. Arguing with your mother will only incur tension between the two of you. A mother only wants the very best for her child. It doesn't matter how old we get, our mothers will always be moms.

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11 Ways to Deal With a Critical Mother

"my mother doesn't respect me and i try so hard.".

Posted June 28, 2016 | Reviewed by Gary Drevitch

Dear Dr. G,

I am sure that my mother loves me, but I just don't understand why she doesn't show it in other ways like I see my friend's moms do. I always pushed it out of my mind, but it has gotten to the point where she is the only person in my life that can make me cry so hard and make me feel as worthless as I do.

Growing up, I was never one of the kids that told their mom everything. I was always so jealous when my friends said they told their moms everything, even about boys. Whenever I did try to talk to her, she would counter me and not comfort me but tear me down. I just never understood because I didn't think she was trying to. Additionally, it always bothered me that I would cry and sob in front of her and she would just ask me angrily why I was crying and why I couldn't stop.

She never really trusted me, and let me go out with friends but not if she didn't know every detail. I have never drank or done drugs. (I'm 16.) I have no intention of getting high or drunk as a high schooler, and my grades are great. I have all As and A-s, and she will tell me "good job!" and sometimes, "I'm proud of you. Keep it up." And then almost always ask how my friends did. And that was IT. But when I got a bad grade, she would be SO disappointed and rant forever. I felt (and feel) worthless even though I try my hardest. But then OCCASIONALLY she would only be slightly upset if she knew I tried my best. But she never ever said, "It's okay" or "I'm still proud of you for trying."

Multiple times, she has told me I need to work out more. Once, it made me so insecure because she told me my thighs were getting too big. I have very low self-esteem already, and struggle with anxiety . I am active, I work out and play sports. I'm 5'2 and 110 pounds, and I would say I'm skinnier than many people I know.

She yells at me probably every other day for something. For little things I've never heard other people's parents get mad about. For not putting my shampoo back in the right spot in the bathtub. For not washing my dish (after eating; a SINGLE dish). For not recycling a container. I've never heard her say, "Thanks for doing the dishes" or even, "You remembered to do the dishes. Good job."

Over the years, I've put up with this. Accepted that I'm luckier than most people. Been grateful that my dad loves me and treats me with respect, and is always proud of me and always wants to talk to me. I love my mother, and I think she loves me but at the same time doesn't care to show it. Now, what drove me to sobbing uncontrollably for the first time in a few months happened today. She basically told me she didn't think I had morals or was a good person. (I think I'm a moral person. I always apologize first, thank people for the little things, and try to make others smile.) Then she told me MY attitude needs to be fixed. I cried in front of her for the first time in months, hating myself for it. I apologized and said I respect her. She didn't believe me. She accused me of lying , saying there's no point if I have that attitude. I don't know how to deal with this. I can't confront her. Every time I try I end up heartbroken with my self-esteem lower. My dad never knows who to side with, and my brother is never home (college). I just can't understand if she really loves me and if she does why she can't respect me but expects me to respect her.

I am so very sorry that you are going through this. Your situation sounds very upsetting and you, like everyone else, deserve to have a mother who is the leader of your fan club. Unfortunately, what happens instead is that your mother criticizes and tears you down, leading you to question yourself and, in turn, to poor self-esteem. This happens because we tend to internalize our mother's views of us. True? If your mother says it then we feel it may be true. Also true?

We all internalize what our parents say to and about us but I want you to know that there is another way to think about things. Your mother is a critical and perhaps angry woman and appears to lack the skills to be warm, supportive, and soothing. Consider that your mother may have a lot of unresolved issues. Perhaps she was raised like this. That would be unfortunate. Nonetheless, understanding your mother doesn't necessarily make you feel better.

I have a number of suggestions for you and I hope that you find at least one or two helpful.

1. Please try to focus on the respect and support that you get from your father.

2. Be aware that at 110 pounds and 5'2" you do NOT have a weight issue. I would hate to see you develop an eating disorder because of your mother's inappropriate comments.

3. Keep in mind always that your mother clearly has issues of her own. This does NOT mean that she doesn't love you. It may mean, instead, that she doesn't know how to express her love.

4. When your mother criticizes you try very hard to remind yourself that this says more about her than about you. Perhaps she dislikes herself.

5. It is unlikely that your mother will change and begin to appreciate you. Keep this in mind when you hope for recognition and acceptance.

6. Begin to learn to appreciate yourself. Make a list of your strengths and positive qualities. Also, give yourself permission to make mistakes. This is part of the human experience. We all need to forgive ourselves for our mistakes and get back into the game of life. Disappointment is okay but tearing yourself down is not.

7. Begin to practice tuning out your mother's harsh critiques without letting her know that you are doing this. Develop a mantra that you repeat in your head like, "My mother is way too critical." Perhaps after you have done this for a bit you will not get as upset when she criticizes you.

8. Remind yourself that you will leave the house at some point to live on your own or go to college and that you will no longer have to hear your mother's criticisms so frequently.

9. Perhaps you can "borrow" your friend's mothers or other female role models. Clearly, it would be helpful to have other supportive women in your life. Also, set up a social support network around yourself which can include friends, teachers, etc.

10. Promise yourself that you will not become critical toward others the way your mother has been toward you. Work on being compassionate and supportive toward others. This will not only make you and those around you feel good but what goes around comes around. You may begin to experience the same sort of compassion from others. Keep an eye on your anxiety and mood if you ever feel overwhelmed.

11. Keep an eye on your anxiety and mood. If you ever feel overwhelmed by depression and self-hatred , please seek therapy . It can be very helpful.

Good luck and please get back to me.

Barbara Greenberg, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist who specializes in the treatment of adolescents and their well-intentioned but exhausted parents.

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How can I stop my mother’s constant criticism bringing me down?

Sometimes family patterns become so set that we no longer challenge them, says Annalisa Barbieri. I wonder if there might be a conversation to be had

I love my mother most of the time, but sometimes I hate her. She has always been critical of me; i t’s as if she has to find fault (with my hair, my clothes, the way I do things). My brother is spared this criticism.

My mum is in her late 70s , and unlikely to change. It’s never worth arguing with her – especially now, as she is grieving and vulnerable following the death of my father last year . I suppress my anger, keep quiet and change the subject. I call and visit often, as I now have to help her with legal and financial affairs ; my brother lives abroad and this isn’t his skill set. Mum lives in a different part of the country from me, and it’s not practical to go just for the day, so I am very much on her turf when I visit; if I don’t do things the way she wants, there is an explosion. She then seems to recognise that she has gone over the top and sends sweet emails a day or two later about how capable I am.

What I need is to find a way of not letting it get to me as badly as it does. I suspect that a large part of my hurt probably stems from recognising a lot of both parents in myself, and liking the bits that are all Dad, and not liking the bits of me that are more Mum.

I’m sorry to hear about your dad. Sometimes when one parent dies, you not only miss them but realise how much they diluted the other person’s less positive traits. However, I would be careful of eulogising the parent who died and demonising the one left behind; things are rarely that simple.

It is early days for all of you in your grieving journey, but it’s important to realise that while your mother lost her husband, you lost your dad. Sometimes in families one person can claim all the grief, but you need to grieve, too.

The way you describe your mother, the love and hate, is, psychologist and psychoanalyst Prof Alessandra Lemma ( bpc.org.uk ) said, “completely normal” and yet it’s easy to struggle with that ambivalence.

“It might be helpful,” Lemma said, “to think about the distinction between your actual mother [the one you love and hate] and the mother you’ve internalised in your head [who is always critical]. Because it sounds as if you have strategies for dealing with your actual mother when you are with her, but when you leave you seem to be at the mercy of the critical ‘internal mother’ and you may be left feeling that you haven’t got it quite right.”

This may be why it gets to you so much. It must be exhausting to see her as relentlessly critical even when you’re not with her. If you could try to separate out these “mothers” in your mind, it might help. In the meantime, Lemma suggested you may “need to have a second look at how and where you set the boundaries. Are you taking on too much?” Do you need to go that often if these visits leave you feeling so depleted? What is your brother’s skill set when dealing with your mother? Can he not lighten your load in any way, even remotely?

Perhaps reconsider your idea that “it’s never worth arguing with her”. I am imagining that somewhere along the line you learned that it seemed less painful not to contradict her, and sometimes family patterns become so set that we no longer challenge them. But, as you say, you suppress your anger; where do you think that goes? Our minds are very good at turning quashed anger into other, more corrosive emotions such as resentment, even hate.

It’s good that your mum does try to repair things. I wonder if there might be a conversation to be had there? Could you try – maybe over an email in response to hers – saying something such as, “Why does this always happen? I come to help you but I don’t like it when you speak to me like this, please stop.” I understand you don’t want the explosions, but in order to contain them you have become her emotional sandbag. That’s not fair on you and will be hard to sustain in the long term.

Your mother isn’t young, but late 70s isn’t old, either. It might be worth trying to explain, at least once, how you feel and letting any subsequent explosion be her responsibility to contain. Maybe even saying that if she’s so set on doing things her way, she does them herself.

Every week Annalisa Barbieri addresses a family-related problem sent in by a reader. If you would like advice from Annalisa on a family matter, please send your problem to [email protected] . Annalisa regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence. Submissions are subject to our terms and conditions .

Conversations With Annalisa Barbieri, a new podcast series, is available here .

Comments on this piece are premoderated to ensure the discussion remains on the topics raised by the article. Please be aware that there may be a short delay in comments appearing on the site.

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How to Resolve an Argument with Your Mother

Published by graham stoney on february 4, 2012 february 4, 2012.

I just got this question about resolving an argument with your mother in response to my article on How to Recover From a Controlling Mother . Steve asks:

I just got off the phone with my mother who was berating me because I had not responded in a timely fashion to an email, which made her ashamed and disappointed. I went to my computer and looked up “how to deal with a controlling mother”. Your article looked interesting so I began to read it, and as I did my eyes opened up as if you were speaking directly to me! I would love to speak with her about these things, and also with my father, but her defense is locked down tight: she is a psychologist of many years, and would just discredit anything I had to say. She also insists that my father would not want to talk to me about anything on an emotional level (he really doesn’t like to be dragged in between us), and therefore I shouldn’t bother. I also run the risk of making her angry, which is VERY easy to do, and then I worry that I’m hurting her. Just writing this really exposes to myself the psychological mire I exist in… Advice?

This is a great question Steve so thanks for putting it out there. Our relationship with our mother can have such a powerful controlling influence over us and really undermine our self-confidence. Most men are reluctant to admit how powerfully influential our mothers still are even long into adulthood, and this can have a massive effect on eroding our sense of self.

It’s important to stand your ground and be assertive when resolving an argument with your mother.

Mother issues are a very common problem for men (and women!) who lack self-confidence. Just yesterday I was on the phone with a friend whose childhood was dominated by his mother and other women around him. My [intlink id=”480″ type=”post”]controlling mother[/intlink] article consistently gets more hits every day than anything else on this site. It’s a big problem.

We grow up emotionally attached and enmeshed with our mothers, and controlling mothers resist the normal detachment process that begins during adolescence. When mothers complain about their adolescent boy’s bad behavior, what they’re really feeling is the normal pain of separation that parents go through as we individuate and become men. A mother with insight will grin and bear this pain as she allows you to separate; but many parents lack this insight and try to maintain control. A power struggle results, which is particularly intense when each side has their self-esteem invested in maintaining control (for her) and gaining freedom (for you).

You might think that a psychologist would have a better insight into this than most; what I’m talking about is basic attachment theory and she’s almost certainly read Bowlby’s work on it. But we never see our own emotional responses objectively so the fact that she should be an expert in this kind of thing isn’t really relevant. In fact I’ve noticed amongst my friends with psychologists as parents that they often seem worse at this kind of thing. Your mother may feel extra defensive when her relationships aren’t working well since she’s supposed to be an expert; perhaps you’re projecting higher expectations onto her due to her expertise; or perhaps she became a psychologist in the first place because she had issues to work through and it’s still a work in progress. Either way it doesn’t matter; forget about her being a psychologist and start looking at her as just another fragile, defensive human being who is herself hurting as much as she’s hurting you.

Going through a period of conflict where you learn to stand up to your mother is a normal and necessary part of developing your individual identity as a man. Ideally it happens during adolescence, but in the case of a controlling or hostile parent it’s understandable that we avoid conflict like the plague. From my experience, it doesn’t matter how long you delay or avoid this conflict: it doesn’t go away until you really face it and stand up to her. It seems to be just an unavoidable part of life, but there are a few things you can do to make the conflict more bearable.

The most important thing is to learn to tolerate your mother’s emotional state regardless of whether it’s pleasant or unpleasant, while you also learn to express how you feel in a constructive way. Over time you can learn to be less emotionally meshed with her and transition from a parent/child relationship to an adult/adult relationship which is more fulfilling for both of you. I’ve done this really well with my father; with my mother it’s a work-in-progress, but it seems to be getting there.

I had a similar experience on the phone with my mother last year where she got extremely angry with me after I rescheduled a lunch outing at the last minute because I had a bad headache. It was very heavy going, and I could see that the anger she was showing me was out of proportion to what had actually happened, so something else had to be going on. For the first time I could remember, I actually acknowledged her anger rather than avoiding going there. All I had to say was “You sound angry” in response to a few of her comments, and her anger appeared to skyrocket. Previously I would have just avoided this and skirted around it, but this time I wanted to face it full-on.

People who are easily angered typically have a backlog of unexpressed and unprocessed emotions which are unleashed on unsuspecting family members when they do something that upsets them. The truth is that you can’t make your mother angry. What happens is we do things they don’t like, and they have an emotional response. If they’re self-aware, they’ll own this response and say “I feel angry when you do that”. But self-aware people don’t become hostile and controlling in the first place, so you may need to model assertive communication of emotions for her. In my conversation with my mother, I said to her “I feel really nervous saying this, but you sound really angry with me and I’d like to hear what’s really going on for you?” She hung up on me three times as I kept ringing back to get to the bottom of the what she was really upset about.

I knew that after 77 years feeling ashamed of how she really felt, my mother wasn’t likely to go along with this new way of communicating easily, but it was still really important to me to be direct with her and ask what the real problem was. It turned out that rescheduling the lunch date was just the tip of the ice-berg. She was angry about a lot of things, and most of them didn’t even involve me. My mother has a store of resentment towards my father that she projects onto me; it’s a dead give-away because she uses his name whenever she’s at the height of anger at me. You don’t have to study psychology to see that this is displaced anger: my mother is angry with my father, but is too afraid to express it in her closest relationship, so she fires it at me instead where the stakes aren’t as high.

The challenge is standing up to dysfunctional behavior from your mother and responding with your true emotions regardless of whether it goes well or not. We build confidence by exercising courage in situations like this. Courage is the willingness to take action even when we don’t know how it will go. When I stood up to my mother by acknowledging my fear and her anger, it didn’t appear to go well. She went even deeper into her anger and then my father weighed in as well. He’s also afraid of her anger, so it’s easier for him to get angry with me for “upsetting her” than it is to back me in doing what’s best for the relationships between us all: acknowledge each other’s true feelings.

You know you’re a man when you’re isolated like this and doing the right thing by everyone anyway, regardless of their childish resistance. No-one said growing up would be easy; that’s why so many men are still children walking around in a man’s body.

If you find your mother’s emotions overwhelming, you may need to put some emotional distance between the two of you. Many men move cities or countries for a while in order to add physical space between them and their mothers on the pretext of moving “for work”. Don’t expect her to be happy about this, but you’ll notice how much better she treats you on your occasional visit back home. Stay too long though and you’ll probably regress back to parent/child again. Moving away is only a stop-gap measure, but it can give you the space to build your confidence without her constant influence undermining the everyday gains you make. On the other hand, simply running away from the problem won’t help because we all take the baggage from our mothers into our relationships with women until we really deal with it.

Note that unless you’re doing things that are deliberately hurtful and vindictive, you aren’t “making your mother angry” or “hurting her” when you acknowledge her feelings and allow her to feel them more deeply. That’s just how feelings work: when another person acknowledges how we feel, it gives us permission to go deeper into our emotions. Not only is this a healing thing, it’s also the basis of intimacy in all our relationships.

The normal separation and individuation process we go through in growing from a boy to a man is inherently painful for mothers, and that’s part of what she signed up for when she became a parent. You can’t tip-toe around this or protect her from it if you want to be your own man. We all have to learn to do what’s right even in the face of resistance from our parents, and this is particularly difficult when they’re used to exercising control over us emotionally.

When someone affects you emotionally, you give your power away to them. This can be a positive thing when we fall in love with a woman, and it can be challenging when our parents use emotion to manipulate us. But nobody can affect you emotionally without you letting them do so. And the same goes for your mother: you don’t “make her angry”. You do your thing and when it triggers her insecurities, she responds with anger because in the past that was an effective way of stopping you doing whatever reminded her of her unhealed pain.

Circumstances that create an emotional reaction in us typically do so because they remind us of an unpleasant event in our past that we need to work through. You can’t force your mother to do the hard work of healing emotional pain from her past, but you can’t really be free by tip-toeing around it either. The key to emotional healing is to stop avoiding unpleasant emotions, so you’re actually doing your mother a favor whenever you do the things that make her angry… provided you’re doing them because they are the right thing to do, and not out of malice. Her anger isn’t really about you at all; it’s just a projection of some hurt in her past. Each time she goes to the pain, she has the opportunity to heal it. If you learn to be steadfast and meet her anger with love, it will soften over time. Even if it doesn’t, you’ll have learned to stand up for your emotional truth in the face of a woman’s volatility; and other women will love you for this.

I don’t pretend that this is easy. I was stressed out and tense for at least 3 days after the argument I had with my mother. I’m still learning to unmesh emotionally from her. I also had fallout with my father to deal with: we ended up having a conversation where I told him I was upset with him for getting angry with me, that I wasn’t perfect and needed to be free to make mistakes, and that I didn’t want to keep relating to either of them by avoiding how we all feel. He apologized and started asking me how I thought he should deal with her moods. Talk about irony. My advice to him was much the same as what I’m saying here: learn to identify how she feels, reflect that back to her, and acknowledge how you feel. Stop avoiding her emotions. This is the basis of emotional intimacy, and it takes time to learn to do it when we’re out of practice.

Interestingly enough, despite a lack of apology from my mother, she has been treating me with greater respect since our “argument”. I wouldn’t say I handled the situation perfectly, but the main thing I did differently was I acknowledged how she was feeling, and I sought to understand what was really going on behind that rather than getting defensive about it. I suspect my mother felt quite embarrassed about what she said to me on the phone but is too ashamed about it to offer an apology.

I could bear a grudge and feel resentful towards her, but shortly after my conversation I was thinking about how people in my family seem to deliberately withhold what other people want from them. It’s like we all know what each other wants, but we don’t give it to them because we know they want it. What’s with that? I started feeling angry with my parents and siblings. Then it occurred to me that I was doing exactly the same thing with my mother. I know what she wants from me: a quick phone call roughly once a week just to see how she is, with no other agenda. But I don’t give it to her.

I had a bunch of excuses for why I didn’t do this, but it really boiled down to a self-righteous attitude that she didn’t deserve it. She doesn’t give me what I want (emotional support, warmth, kindness) so why should I give her what she wants? Pretty petty really. So I thought to myself: what would happen if I were to drop my self-righteousness and just start giving her what she wanted? I began calling her regularly just to see how she was. And what do you know: she started responding to me with warmth and kindness instead of criticism, hostility and anger.

I also recommend that you don’t get involved in discussions about your father with your mother, or vice-versa. Don’t try to drag your father into what’s going on between you and your mother, and don’t bitch to your father about her either. The closest allegiance a married person has is to their spouse so if being true to yourself triggers your mother’s fear and anger, it’s natural that she’ll want your father on her side rather than yours. Let it be. Remember that to really be your own man, you need to be able to stand true in the face of criticism, judgment, anger or whatever from your father too. This is part of transitioning from father/son to adult/adult in that relationship. Get support from other men so that your father isn’t caught in a parental love triangle; it’s no wonder he hates being in this position.

Doing all of this requires self-awareness and emotional healing for your past hurts. Otherwise you remain vulnerable to your mother’s moods. I don’t recommend attempting this healing with your parents initially; they’re too close to the action and are likely to be triggered by your attempts to heal your own stuff. I’ve done a lot of [intlink id=”181″ type=”category”]different types of therapy[/intlink] to deal with the anxiety I inherited from my parents and emotional healing was really crucial for me. Exposing our psychological mire is precisely what we need to do in order to heal the shame that is beneath it, so good on you Steve for going there. Be patient with yourself because this stuff is dealing with really core issues that can take time to heal.

The ultimate destination is to be able to show your mother love and kindness regardless of how she acts towards you. That’s what they mean by unconditional love. Any man can love the lovable; it’s loving the unlovable that makes you a hero and sets you free. This requires us to deal with our own emotional baggage sufficiently that we don’t get triggered and overwhelmed by hers. Then we can be free to weather the storms of our mother’s emotional state so that we can act with personal integrity. Hard as it may be to believe, she’ll end up being grateful for your ability to do this and you’ll end up copping less hostility from her. Or even if she doesn’t, it won’t affect you as much and this skill will be brilliant in your relationships with women. Either way you’re a winner.

You’re on the right track, so hang in there. For more on transitioning from a mother/boy to woman/man relationship with your mother, see Step 8 in Confident Man : Forgive Your Mother .

Build your self-confidence faster with The Confident Man Program

Graham Stoney

I struggled for years with low self-esteem, anxiety and a lack of self-confidence before finding a solution that really worked. I created The Confident Man Program to help other men live the life of their dreams. I also offer 1-on-1 coaching via Skype so if you related to this article contact me about coaching .

Matt · March 12, 2012 at 5:55 pm

I’ve now read both this article and the article, ‘How to Recover From a Controlling Mother,’ and I have to admit, Graham, that I’m certainly one of those who had NO IDEA that men struggled so much with controlling mothers!

I was always under the idea that the father/son dynamic would cause the most headaches when it came to growing as a man, emotionally, but your two articles have really put a new spin on it for me.

Brilliant to see also that people are feeling that they can reach out and approach you with their issues. I think that has a great to do with your personable writing style.

Graham Stoney · March 13, 2012 at 11:36 am

I think this is an even bigger deal when the father/son dynamic isn’t strong; which often happens if you have a passive father. Unfortunately a passive father and controlling mother often tend to team up and give a double-whammy blow to a man’s confidence. Cheers, Graham

Frances Amaroux · February 5, 2012 at 3:36 pm

Excellent article Graham!! Wonderful, balanced, realistic advice. So important for all of us to deal with our families of origin. And especially important for men to deal with their mother stuff if they want to be in a mature relationship. Its slightly different for women and fathers, as the fathers usually had less of a parenting input than mothers.

Graham Stoney · February 5, 2012 at 6:14 pm

Thanks Frances; I really appreciate the positive feedback. This article sure hits a lot of buttons for me! Cheers, Graham

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Last Updated: April 10, 2023

This article was co-authored by Jin S. Kim, MA . Jin Kim is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist based out of Los Angeles, California. Jin specializes in working with LGBTQ individuals, people of color, and those that may have challenges related to reconciling multiple and intersectional identities. Jin received his Masters in Clinical Psychology from Antioch University Los Angeles, with a specialization in LGBT-Affirming Psychology, in 2015. This article has been viewed 44,714 times.

Parents and their children often disagree. Everything from curfew to dinner is fair game for an argument. Ultimately, it is in everyone’s best interest to be open to hearing both sides, reach an agreeable compromise, and move on with life. Arguments are inevitable, but settling them is a must for both parents and their kids. The best way for arguments to be settled is for both sides to make their points respectfully, be willing to compromise, and accept the outcomes.

Making Your Point Respectfully

• Ask your parents if it's a good time to talk. For example, say, "I really want to talk to you about something when you have a free moment."

• For example, if your parents’ think that going out every Friday night will interfere with you spending time with the family, you might address their concern by saying something like “I know that family time is important, but I need time to be myself, too. Plus, I will be home every Sunday afternoon for family dinner.”
• For example, say, "I understand that you want me to have a 9:00 p.m. curfew for my own safety, but I'm old enough to stay out later and have proven that I'm responsible on nights that you have let me come home later."
• Emphasize what you've done that should reduce their concerns.

• An example of expressing yourself through an “I” statement would be to say something such as “I feel like I get to go out much less than other people my age,” rather than saying “You never let me go out as much as my friends go out.”
• You may need to take time to reflect on your feelings and why you are feeling this way.
• Explain your feelings to your parents in a respectful manner, and repeat them if you don't feel that your parents understood the first time. For example, you may say, "I feel really hurt that you don't think I'm responsible enough to participate in the decision-making process."

• Instead of raising your voice to talk over your parents, listen carefully to what they are saying and then reply in a calm tone with something like “I understand your concerns, but let me explain my side, please.”

• For example, you should not call your grandmother and have her tell your parents to let you go out tonight.
• Do not bring up last week’s discussion about doing dishes as a focus on whether or not you can go out tonight. Things like “You always do this to me. You were awful to me last week about the dishes, and now you’re being awful to me about going out with my friends!” will only escalate the argument and divert the conversation.

Reaching Compromises

• Attacks like “You are the worst parents ever! I hate you!” have no place in any argument. Instead, try things like “I know you think that this is the best decision for me, but I disagree.”

• You might say, for example, “I know that you are afraid that my grades will suffer if I play a sport, but I will commit to studying an extra hour every Saturday and Sunday if you let me play.”

• You might say, for example, "I understand that you don't want me to stay overnight for Rachel's party because you're worried we'll get into trouble. What if I stay until midnight, and then you pick me up? I could also check in via text and have Rachel's mom call you."

Accepting the Outcomes

• For example, you might not agree that having a curfew is necessary at all, but this does not mean that your parents are wrong for instating a curfew.

• For example, after arguing over the time of curfew, you should not continue to be mad at your parents the next day.

• An example might be to say something like "I still do not think that I need a curfew, but I understand why you want me to have one, and I'll follow the rules."

• For example, if you'd like to stay out after curfew on Friday night because there is a school dance, explain the situation to your parents. Calmly mention that the dance runs until after curfew, and that you'd like to be there and will come straight home after.

Expert Q&A

• After you've made up, remember to be very conscious through the rest of the day. If you get into another argument, it will be worse than the first time. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• Living with arguments is difficult, try and get it sorted as soon as possible! It will affect you in the long run and although it may seem daunting to approach your parents, once it’s sorted you'll be glad you did! Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• While explaining your side of the story, remember not to sound like you are right and they are wrong. Be open to listen to them. Thanks Helpful 45 Not Helpful 5
• You may disagree with your parents, but they have the final word. Thanks Helpful 9 Not Helpful 5

You Might Also Like

• ↑ http://kidshealth.org/en/teens/tips-disagree.html?WT.ac=t-ra
• ↑ Jin S. Kim, MA. Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist. Expert Interview. 14 May 2019.
• ↑ http://www.teenissues.co.uk/arguingwithparents.html
• ↑ http://kidshealth.org/en/teens/fight.html#

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I've had an argument with my mother - how can I make up with her?

Relate counsellor christine northam suggests how to extend the olive branch to your mother after a rift , article bookmarked.

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If your heart is sinking at the thought of Mother’s Day because you don’t get on with your mother, try to take some comfort in knowing you’re not alone.

In a recent study by Relate, Marriage Care and Relationships Scotland, 22 per cent of people said they didn't have a good relationship with their mother. And if you are like that fifth of people, Mother’s Day can feel lonely and upsetting. Often people who don’t get on with their mums feel like they’re going against societal norms. The expectation is that you should love and accept your mother as she is and be the dutiful child. However, the reality is that some parents can’t or sometimes simply don’t put their children’s needs before their own.

For some people with a truly toxic relationship with their mother it might be emotionally healthier for them to create a safe distance. That’s an incredibly difficult decision to make, so if I work with people who feel they should do that, we explore all the angles and implications of the issue to make sure that when and if they decide to take action, the decision is thoroughly thought through rather than an emotional reaction.

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If you feel that your relationship with your mother upsets you and there are things you’d like to make her aware of, then this Sunday probably isn’t the best time to try it. It’s a day fraught with emotion and, as with Christmas, birthdays and weddings, everything is much more intense. So I’d suggest you just try to get through the day as best you can. Perhaps sit in the car before going in with gift, take some deep breaths and promise yourself you won’t bite bacl when your mother says something that usually infuriates you. Family games, as we counsellors call them, can’t work if one of you won’t play ball. I f she’s always critical and you’re defensive, refuse to play the game.

Instead, think about what you can reasonably do to acknowledge Mother’s Day without it causing you too much stress and strain. Then if you do want to repair the relationship, there are some steps you can take after Sunday.

Assess your situation

Firstly you need to take responsibility for yourself. You have to face the reality of how your mother is and not how you may wish she’d be. Being real about your parents is part of growing up. If you have children of your own, learning from your parent’s past mistakes can help you to be a better parent yourself. If you can acknowledge and understand how your mother and father figures parented and how it impacted on you, it can help you to avoid repeating history. What’s great about focusing on this is that it puts you in a position to make a choice of how you want to be, and that’s really positive.

Be honest with her

We all owe it to ourselves to try to achieve the utmost emotional health we can. So if your relationship with your mother is 70 percent OK but there are niggles, you might feel confident enough to sit down and talk it through with her.

Explain gently and honestly how you feel, but without being accusatory or blaming. Say something like: “I find our relationship difficult at times - shall we chat this through, see if we can improve it for both of us?” That is much more likely to work than barging in and having a go at her.

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Don't feel guilty.

It’s worth trying to improve your relationship with your mother if you possibly can. But if it still doesn’t work out, at least you can comfort yourself with the knowledge that you tried.

Some children feel that they’re in some way set up to fail by their mothers – there’s absolutely nothing they can ever do to please her. If that’s you, think about seeing a counsellor to get some help dealing with this, as it’s very hard to face alone. If the relationship is so toxic that it’s damaging you into adulthood, you may need permission to break off contact with your mother entirely. Again, a counsellor is someone who can give you that "permission" and sometimes that’s all that people need.

See life from her perspective

For those who feel their relationship isn’t beyond repair, try to remember that there are usually reasons behind why people act in the way they do. Perhaps your mother’s relationship with her own parents wasn’t all that it could’ve been. Maybe your mum didn’t achieve everything she hoped to in life and that’s why she pushed you so hard at school. Trying to understand what causes her to act in the way she does can help to create greater empathy and tolerance. If she wants to make up for lost time or rebuild your relationship then see if you can find it in your heart to forgive her.

Consider your own behaviour

It’s also worth considering if there’s anything you would or could have done differently. Perhaps you’ve said or done things to her in the past that you feel bad about. Making the first step and apologising can be hard, particularly when you feel that she’s also in the wrong, but the potential rewards are enormous.

Don’t expect everything to be mended overnight, but in time it’s possible to get things back on track and for Mother’s Day to conjure up more positive emotions in the future.

Christine Northam is an experienced counsellor working with individuals and couples coping with relationship difficulties. To find out more about Relate’s services, visit the website .

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Why Does My Mom Argue With Me About Everything?

• July 5, 2022

Carol Gravitt

Nothing is worse than when you mind your business and the argument suddenly starts.

You didn’t do anything to provoke it. Maybe you just came home from work or got out of bed, but those harsh words and objections awaited you like poisonous needles.

What is on today’s arguments menu, you are wondering. Is it something big like who are you dating? Why didn’t you go to college?

Or it is something small and trivial like why are you wearing that ugly T-shirt? Whatever it is, you are just sick of it and want it to stop.

Every argument is worse when the person you care about is on the opposite side of you. It’s horrible when you fight with your mother. Mother is the most crucial person in our lives, and our relationship with her is significant.

You can’t help but wonder, how did the two of you get into that situation? Why did you lose the idyllic relationship you once had? Who’s to blame? Is it her, or is it you? Or is the guilt shared?

All these questions bother you and disturb your daily life. The most important question to which you need to find an answer in this situation is: How to fix the relationship with your mother and stop all those toxic arguments?

In this article, by explaining why your mom argues with you constantly, we will try to give you some pieces of advice on how to fix your relationship with your mother.

Your mother didn’t have good role models

Unfortunately, parents often pass on their parents’ mistakes to their children.

If your mother was subject to the same toxic arguments from her mother when she was younger, there is a possibility that she adopted the same behavior.

She does not recognize that this system is terrible but thinks it is normal and justified. Maybe she even believes that this way, she is developing a strong character for her child.

Toxic perfectionism

It is usual for a mother to want his child to succeed in life in every aspect. But what if that need becomes a nuisance and a burden to the child.

Parents often want their children to be the best in everything. But your mother’s vision for you sometimes does not match the image of life that you want for yourself.

Maybe your mother is an overachiever, career-driven, and expects the same from you. She expects you to do what she wants and doesn’t respect your wishes.

When there is so much desire present, the disappointment can be huge. That disappointment quickly becomes complaints and arguments.

Victim mentality and blame game

Many arguments await you if your mother decides to fall into victim mentality or play the blame game.

You will probably hear the sentence: “I sacrificed everything for you, and this is how you repay me” . You will undoubtedly hear a lot about her dreams, what she could have been, what kind of career she could have had, and so on.

Whose fault is it that none of that happened? In your mother’s opinion, it’s yours. She sacrificed everything for you but will use every opportunity to remind you.

Even if you succeed in life, according to her, it is because she decided to play the holy victim so that you could achieve.

You and your mother are too different

You share the same blood, but that does not mean you are the same person.

You can have different views and opinions on all possible topics, and this can cause many potential arguments. Your mother may disagree with your lifestyle and choices in life.

It can be a generational thing. You know that different generations, such as boomers and millennials, do not understand one another.

You and your mother are too similar

Yes, even this can be a reason for burning arguments. You both are easily annoyed and offended. The same nervous personality is what describes you both.

In such a heated atmosphere, arguments are inevitable. Now, here are some strategies to stop or at least minimize the arguments:

Talk with her

Sounds pretty obvious, but it does matter how you approach it.

Tell her how her constant complaints ruin your inner peace and that you want to stop it. If you think it is necessary, you can go to psychotherapy together.

Try to step into her shoes

It is always tricky to look at the situation from a different perspective. The more complicated is when our mother is on the opposite side.

Try to understand her, what made her be this way. Acknowledge and respect her. Show empathy.

Set some boundaries

Healthy boundaries should exist in all relationships, and even with the mother.

It may be challenging to set boundaries with your mother, but if you set healthy boundaries, you will save yourself from unnecessary criticism.

Limit the time with her and choose what to tell her and what not

These are not permanent solutions, but they will help you listen to complaints a little less than usual.

If your mom does not respect boundaries, try limiting your time with her. Maybe she will realize how her objections create a rift between you two.

You probably already know which topics will start an argument, so avoid them.

You may not be able to change some of your mother’s habits, but with these two methods, you will at least minimize her arguments.

To Conclude

Constant arguments lead nowhere, and there are no winners in them.

Even minor complaints usually hide some bigger problem behind them.

You don’t want that feeling of emptiness and anger over you after an argument anymore. It’s up to you to decide the best way to stop your mother’s toxic nagging. Arm yourself with patience and positive energy.

You are thankful to her for everything, but you are grown up now and make choices for yourself, and your mom should respect that.

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Finding the Good Argument OR Why Bother With Logic?

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Rebecca Jones

The word argument often means something negative. * In Nina Paley’s cartoon (see Figure 1), the argument is literally a cat fight. Rather than envisioning argument as something productive and useful, we imagine intractable sides and use descriptors such as “bad,” “heated,” and “violent.” We rarely say, “Great, argument. Thanks!” Even when we write an academic “argument paper,” we imagine our own ideas battling others.

Linguists George Lakoff and Mark Johnson explain that the controlling metaphor we use for argument in western culture is war:

g metaphor we use for argument in western culture is war: It is important to see that we don’t just talk about arguments in terms of war. We actually win or lose arguments. We see the person we are arguing with as an opponent. We attack his positions and we defend our own. We gain and lose ground. We plan and use strategies. If we find a position indefensible, we can abandon it and take a new line of attack. Many of the things we do in arguing are partially structured by the concept of war. (4)

If we follow the war metaphor along its path, we come across other notions such as, “all’s fair in love and war.” If all’s fair, then the rules, principles, or ethics of an argument are up for grabs. While many warrior metaphors are about honor, the “all’s fair” idea can lead us to arguments that result in propaganda, spin, and, dirty politics. The war metaphor offers many limiting assumptions: there are only two sides, someone must win decisively, and compromise means losing. The metaphor also creates a false opposition where argument (war) is action and its opposite is peace or inaction. Finding better arguments is not about finding peace—the opposite of antagonism. Quite frankly, getting mad can be productive. Ardent peace advocates, such as Jane Addams, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr., offer some of the most compelling arguments of our time through concepts like civil disobedience that are hardly inactive. While “argument is war” may be the default mode for Americans, it is not the only way to argue. Lakoff and Johnson ask their readers to imagine something like “argument is dance” rather than “argument is war” (5). While we can imagine many alternatives to the war metaphor, concepts like argument as collaboration are more common even if they are not commonly used. Argument as collaboration would be more closely linked to words such as dialogue and deliberation , cornerstone concepts in the history of American democracy.

However, argument as collaboration is not the prevailing metaphor for public argumentation we see/hear in the mainstream media. One can hardly fault the average American for not being able to imagine argument beyond the war metaphor. Think back to the coverage of the last major election cycle in 2008. The opponents on either side (democrat/republican) dug in their heels and defended every position, even if it was unpopular or irrelevant to the conversation at hand. The political landscape divided into two sides with no alternatives. In addition to the entrenched positions, blogs and websites such as FactCheck.org flooded us with lists of inaccuracies, missteps, and plain old fallacies that riddled the debates. Unfortunately, the “debates” were more like speeches given to a camera than actual arguments deliberated before the public. These important moments that fail to offer good models lower the standards for public argumentation.

On an average news day, there are entire websites and blogs dedicated to noting ethical, factual, and legal problems with public arguments, especially on the news and radio talk shows. This is not to say that all public arguments set out to mislead their audiences, rather that the discussions they offer masquerading as arguments are often merely opinions or a spin on a particular topic and not carefully considered, quality arguments. What is often missing from these discussions is research, consideration of multiple vantage points, and, quite often, basic logic.

On news shows, we encounter a version of argument that seems more like a circus than a public discussion. Here’s the visual we get of an “argument” between multiple sides on the average news show. In this example (see Figure 2), we have a four ring circus.

While all of the major networks use this visual format, multiple speakers in multiple windows like The Brady Bunch for the news, it is rarely used to promote ethical deliberation. These talking heads offer a simulation of an argument. The different windows and figures pictured in them are meant to represent different views on a topic, often “liberal” and “conservative.” This is a good start because it sets up the possibility for thinking through serious issues in need of solutions. Unfortunately, the people in the windows never actually engage in an argument (see Thinking Outside the Text). As we will discuss below, one of the rules of good argument is that participants in an argument agree on the primary standpoint and that individuals are willing to concede if a point of view is proven wrong. If you watch one of these “arguments,” you will see a spectacle where prepared speeches are hurled across the long distances that separate the participants. Rarely do the talking heads respond to the actual ideas/arguments given by the person pictured in the box next to them on the screen unless it is to contradict one statement with another of their own. Even more troubling is the fact that participants do not even seem to agree about the point of disagreement. For example, one person might be arguing about the congressional vote on health care while another is discussing the problems with Medicaid. While these are related, they are different issues with different premises. This is not a good model for argumentation despite being the predominant model we encounter.

Activity: Thinking Outside the Text

Watch the famous video of Jon Stewart on the show Crossfire: (http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmj6JADOZ-8).

• What is Stewart’s argument?
• How do the hosts of Crossfire respond to the very particular argument that Stewart makes?
• Why exactly are they missing the point?

These shallow public models can influence argumentation in the classroom. One of the ways we learn about argument is to think in terms of pro and con arguments. This replicates the liberal/conservative dynamic we often see in the papers or on television (as if there are only two sides to health care, the economy, war, the deficit). This either/or fallacy of public argument is debilitating. You are either for or against gun control, for or against abortion, for or against the environment, for or against everything. Put this way, the absurdity is more obvious. For example, we assume that someone who claims to be an “environmentalist” is pro every part of the green movement. However, it is quite possible to develop an environmentally sensitive argument that argues against a particular recycling program. While many pro and con arguments are valid, they can erase nuance, negate the local and particular, and shut down the very purpose of having an argument: the possibility that you might change your mind, learn something new, or solve a problem. This limited view of argument makes argumentation a shallow process. When all angles are not explored or fallacious or incorrect reasoning is used, we are left with ethically suspect public discussions that cannot possibly get at the roots of an issue or work toward solutions.

Activity: Finding Middle Ground

Outline the pro and con arguments for the following issues:

• Gun Control
• Cap and Trade
• Free Universal Healthcare

In a group, develop an argument that finds a compromise or middle ground between two positions.

Rather than an either/or proposition, argument is multiple and complex. An argument can be logical, rational, emotional, fruitful, useful, and even enjoyable. As a matter of fact, the idea that argument is necessary (and therefore not always about war or even about winning) is an important notion in a culture that values democracy and equity. In America, where nearly everyone you encounter has a different background and/or political or social view, skill in arguing seems to be paramount, whether you are inventing an argument or recognizing a good one when you see it.

The remainder of this chapter takes up this challenge—inventing and recognizing good arguments (and bad ones). From classical rhetoric, to Toulmin’s model, to contemporary pragma-dialectics, this chapter presents models of argumentation beyond pro and con. Paying more addition to the details of an argument can offer a strategy for developing sound, ethically aware arguments.

What Can We Learn from Models of Argumentation

So far, I have listed some obstacles to good argument. I would like to discuss one other. Let’s call it the mystery factor. Many times I read an argument and it seems great on the surface, but I get a strange feeling that something is a bit off. Before studying argumentation, I did not have the vocabulary to name that strange feeling. Additionally, when an argument is solid, fair, and balanced, I could never quite put my finger on what distinguished it from other similar arguments. The models for argumentation below give us guidance in revealing the mystery factor and naming the qualities of a logical, ethical argument.

Classical Rhetoric

In James Murphy’s translation of Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria , he explains that “Education for Quintilian begins in the cradle, and ends only when life itself ends” (xxi). The result of a life of learning, for Quintilian, is a perfect speech where “the student is given a statement of a problem and asked to prepare an appropriate speech giving his solution” (Murphy xxiii). In this version of the world, a good citizen is always a PUBLIC participant. This forces the good citizen to know the rigors of public argumentation: “Rhetoric, or the theory of effective communication, is for Quintilian merely the tool of the broadly educated citizen who is capable of analysis, reflection, and powerful action in public affairs” (Murphy xxvii). For Quintilian, learning to argue in public is a lifelong affair. He believed that the “perfect orator . . . cannot exist unless he is above all a good man” (6). Whether we agree with this or not, the hope for ethical behavior has been a part of public argumentation from the beginning.

The ancient model of rhetoric (or public argumentation) is complex. As a matter of fact, there is no single model of ancient argumentation. Plato claimed that the Sophists, such as Gorgias, were spin doctors weaving opinion and untruth for the delight of an audience and to the detriment of their moral fiber. For Plato, at least in the Phaedrus, public conversation was only useful if one applied it to the search for truth. In the last decade, the work of the Sophists has been redeemed. Rather than spin doctors, Sophists like Isocrates and even Gorgias, to some degree, are viewed as arbiters of democracy because they believed that many people, not just male, property holding, Athenian citizens, could learn to use rhetoric effectively in public.

Aristotle gives us a slightly more systematic approach. He is very concerned with logic. For this reason, much of what I discuss below comes from his work. Aristotle explains that most men participate in public argument in some fashion. It is important to note that by “men,” Aristotle means citizens of Athens: adult males with the right to vote, not including women, foreigners, or slaves. Essentially this is a homogenous group by race, gender, and religious affiliation. We have to keep this in mind when adapting these strategies to our current heterogeneous culture. Aristotle explains,

. . . for to a certain extent all men attempt to discuss statements and to maintain them, to defend themselves and to attack others. Ordinary people do this either at random or through practice and from acquired habit. Both ways being possible, the subject can plainly be handled systematically, for it is possible to inquire the reason why some speakers succeed through practice and others spontaneously; and every one will at once agree that such an inquiry is the function of an art. (Honeycutt, “Aristotle’s Rhetoric ” 1354a I i)

For Aristotle, inquiry into this field was artistic in nature. It required both skill and practice (some needed more of one than the other). Important here is the notion that public argument can be systematically learned.

Aristotle did not dwell on the ethics of an argument in Rhetoric (he leaves this to other texts). He argued that “things that are true and things that are just have a natural tendency to prevail over their opposites” and finally that “ . . . things that are true and things that are better are, by their nature, practically always easier to prove and easier to believe in” (Honeycutt, “Aristotle’s Rhetoric” 1355a I i). As a culture, we are skeptical of this kind of position, though I think that we do often believe it on a personal level. Aristotle admits in the next line that there are people who will use their skills at rhetoric for harm. As his job in this section is to defend the use of rhetoric itself, he claims that everything good can be used for harm, so rhetoric is no different from other fields. If this is true, there is even more need to educate the citizenry so that they will not be fooled by unethical and untruthful arguments.

For many, logic simply means reasoning. To understand a person’s logic, we try to find the structure of their reasoning. Logic is not synonymous with fact or truth, though facts are part of evidence in logical argumentation. You can be logical without being truthful. This is why more logic is not the only answer to better public argument.

Our human brains are compelled to categorize the world as a survival mechanism. This survival mechanism allows for quicker thought. Two of the most basic logical strategies include inductive and deductive reasoning. Deductive reasoning (see Figure 3) starts from a premise that is a generalization about a large class of ideas, people, etc. and moves to a specific conclusion about a smaller category of ideas or things (All cats hate water; therefore, my neighbor’s cat will not jump in our pool). While the first premise is the most general, the second premise is a more particular observation. So the argument is created through common beliefs/observations that are compared to create an argument. For example:

People who burn flags are unpatriotic. Major Premise Sara burned a flag. Minor Premise Sara is unpatriotic. Conclusion

The above is called a syllogism. As we can see in the example, the major premise offers a general belief held by some groups and the minor premise is a particular observation. The conclusion is drawn by comparing the premises and developing a conclusion. If you work hard enough, you can often take a complex argument and boil it down to a syllogism. This can reveal a great deal about the argument that is not apparent in the longer more complex version.

Stanley Fish, professor and New York Times columnist, offers the following syllogism in his July 22, 2007, blog entry titled “Democracy and Education”: “The syllogism underlying these comments is (1) America is a democracy (2) Schools and universities are situated within that democracy (3) Therefore schools and universities should be ordered and administrated according to democratic principles.”

Fish offered the syllogism as a way to summarize the responses to his argument that students do not, in fact, have the right to free speech in a university classroom. The responses to Fish’s standpoint were vehemently opposed to his understanding of free speech rights and democracy. The responses are varied and complex. However, boiling them down to a single syllogism helps to summarize the primary rebuttal so that Fish could then offer his extended version of his standpoint (see link to argument in Question #1 at the end of the text).

Inductive reasoning moves in a different direction than deductive reasoning (see Figure 4). Inductive reasoning starts with a particular or local statement and moves to a more general conclusion. I think of inductive reasoning as a stacking of evidence. The more particular examples you give, the more it seems that your conclusion is correct.

Inductive reasoning is a common method for arguing, especially when the conclusion is an obvious probability. Inductive reasoning is the most common way that we move around in the world. If we experience something habitually, we reason that it will happen again. For example, if we walk down a city street and every person smiles, we might reason that this is a “nice town.” This seems logical. We have taken many similar, particular experiences (smiles) and used them to make a general conclusion (the people in the town are nice). Most of the time, this reasoning works. However, we know that it can also lead us in the wrong direction. Perhaps the people were smiling because we were wearing inappropriate clothing (country togs in a metropolitan city), or perhaps only the people living on that particular street are “nice” and the rest of the town is unfriendly. Research papers sometimes rely too heavily on this logical method. Writers assume that finding ten versions of the same argument somehow prove that the point is true.

Here is another example. In Ann Coulter’s most recent book, Guilty: Liberal “Victims” and Their Assault on America , she makes her (in)famous argument that single motherhood is the cause of many of America’s ills. She creates this argument through a piling of evidence. She lists statistics by sociologists, she lists all the single moms who killed their children, she lists stories of single mothers who say outrageous things about their life, children, or marriage in general, and she ends with a list of celebrity single moms that most would agree are not good examples of motherhood. Through this list, she concludes, “Look at almost any societal problem and you will find it is really a problem of single mothers” (36). While she could argue, from this evidence, that being a single mother is difficult, the generalization that single motherhood is the root of social ills in America takes the inductive reasoning too far. Despite this example, we need inductive reasoning because it is the key to analytical thought (see Activity: Applying Inductive and Deductive Reasoning). To write an “analysis paper” is to use inductive reasoning.

Activity: Applying Deductive and Inductive Reasoning

For each standpoint, create a deductive argument AND an inductive argument. When you are finished, share with your group members and decide which logical strategy offers a more successful, believable, and/or ethical argument for the particular standpoint. Feel free to modify the standpoint to find many possible arguments.

• a. Affirmative Action should continue to be legal in the United States. b. Affirmative Action is no longer useful in the United States.
• The arts should remain an essential part of public education.
• Chose a very specific argument on your campus (parking, tuition, curriculum) and create deductive and inductive arguments to support the standpoint.

Most academic arguments in the humanities are inductive to some degree. When you study humanity, nothing is certain. When observing or making inductive arguments, it is important to get your evidence from many different areas, to judge it carefully, and acknowledge the flaws. Inductive arguments must be judged by the quality of the evidence since the conclusions are drawn directly from a body of compiled work.

The Appeals

“The appeals” offer a lesson in rhetoric that sticks with you long after the class has ended. Perhaps it is the rhythmic quality of the words (ethos, logos, pathos) or, simply, the usefulness of the concept. Aristotle imagined logos, ethos, and pathos as three kinds of artistic proof. Essentially, they highlight three ways to appeal to or persuade an audience: “(1) to reason logically, (2) to understand human character and goodness in its various forms, (3) to understand emotions” (Honeycutt, Rhetoric 1356a).

While Aristotle and others did not explicitly dismiss emotional and character appeals, they found the most value in logic. Contemporary rhetoricians and argumentation scholars, however, recognize the power of emotions to sway us. Even the most stoic individuals have some emotional threshold over which no logic can pass. For example, we can seldom be reasonable when faced with a crime against a loved one, a betrayal, or the face of an adorable baby.

The easiest way to differentiate the appeals is to imagine selling a product based on them. Until recently, car commercials offered a prolific source of logical, ethical, and emotional appeals.

Logos : Using logic as proof for an argument. For many students this takes the form of numerical evidence. But as we have discussed above, logical reasoning is a kind of argumentation.

Car Commercial : (Syllogism) Americans love adventure—Ford Escape allows for off road adventure— Americans should buy a Ford Escape.

The Ford Escape offers the best financial deal.

Ethos : Calling on particular shared values (patriotism), respected figures of authority (MLK), or one’s own character as a method for appealing to an audience.

Car Commercial : Eco-conscious Americans drive a Ford Escape.

[Insert favorite movie star] drives a Ford Escape.

Pathos : Using emotionally driven images or language to sway your audience.

Car Commercial : Images of a pregnant women being safely rushed to a hospital. Flash to two car seats in the back seat. Flash to family hopping out of their Ford Escape and witnessing the majesty of the Grand Canyon.

After an image of a worried mother watching her sixteen year old daughter drive away: “Ford Escape takes the fear out of driving.”

The appeals are part of everyday conversation, even if we do not use the Greek terminology (see Activity: Developing Audience Awareness). Understanding the appeals helps us to make better rhetorical choices in designing our arguments. If you think about the appeals as a choice, their value is clear.

Activity: Developing Audience Awareness

Imagine you have been commissioned by your school food service provider to create a presentation encouraging the consumption of healthier foods on campus.

• How would you present this to your friends: consider the media you would use, how you present yourself, and how you would begin.
• How would you present this same material to parents of incoming students?
• Which appeal is most useful for each audience? Why?

Toulmin: Dissecting the Everyday Argument

Philosopher Stephen Toulmin studies the arguments we make in our everyday lives. He developed his method out of frustration with logicians (philosophers of argumentation) that studied argument in a vacuum or through mathematical formulations:

All A are B. All B are C.

Therefore, all A are C. (Eemeren, et al. 131)

Instead, Toulmin views argument as it appears in a conversation, in a letter, or some other context because real arguments are much more complex than the syllogisms that make up the bulk of Aristotle’s logical program. Toulmin offers the contemporary writer/reader a way to map an argument. The result is a visualization of the argument process. This map comes complete with vocabulary for describing the parts of an argument. The vocabulary allows us to see the contours of the landscape—the winding rivers and gaping caverns. One way to think about a “good” argument is that it is a discussion that hangs together, a landscape that is cohesive (we can’t have glaciers in our desert valley). Sometimes we miss the faults of an argument because it sounds good or appears to have clear connections between the statement and the evidence, when in truth the only thing holding the argument together is a lovely sentence or an artistic flourish.

For Toulmin, argumentation is an attempt to justify a statement or a set of statements. The better the demand is met, the higher the audience’s appreciation. Toulmin’s vocabulary for the study of argument offers labels for the parts of the argument to help us create our map.

Claim : The basic standpoint presented by a writer/ speaker.

Data : The evidence which supports the claim.

Warrant : The justification for connecting particular data to a particular claim. The warrant also makes clear the assumptions underlying the argument.

Backing : Additional information required if the warrant is not clearly supported.

Rebuttal : Conditions or standpoints that point out flaws in the claim or alternative positions.

Qualifiers : Terminology that limits a standpoint. Examples include applying the following terms to any part of an argument: sometimes, seems, occasionally, none, always, never, etc.

The following paragraphs come from an article reprinted in UTNE magazine by Pamela Paxton and Jeremy Adam Smith titled: “Not Everyone Is Out to Get You.” Charting this excerpt helps us to understand some of the underlying assumptions found in the article.

“Trust No One”

That was the slogan of The X-Files , the TV drama that followed two FBI agents on a quest to uncover a vast government conspiracy. A defining cultural phenomenon during its run from 1993–2002, the show captured a mood of growing distrust in America.

Since then, our trust in one another has declined even further. In fact, it seems that “Trust no one” could easily have been America’s motto for the past 40 years—thanks to, among other things, Vietnam, Watergate, junk bonds, Monica Lewinsky, Enron, sex scandals in the Catholic Church, and the Iraq war.

The General Social Survey, a periodic assessment of Americans’ moods and values, shows an 11-point decline from 1976–2008 in the number of Americans who believe other people can generally be trusted. Institutions haven’t fared any better. Over the same period, trust has declined in the press (from 29 to 9 percent), education (38–29 percent), banks (41 percent to 20 percent), corporations (23–16 percent), and organized religion (33–20 percent). Gallup’s 2008 governance survey showed that trust in the government was as low as it was during the Watergate era.

The news isn’t all doom and gloom, however. A growing body of research hints that humans are hardwired to trust, which is why institutions, through reform and high performance, can still stoke feelings of loyalty, just as disasters and mismanagement can inhibit it. The catch is that while humans want, even need, to trust, they won’t trust blindly and foolishly.

Figure 5 demonstrates one way to chart the argument that Paxton and Smith make in “Trust No One.” The remainder of the article offers additional claims and data, including the final claim that there is hope for overcoming our collective trust issues. The chart helps us to see that some of the warrants, in a longer research project, might require additional support. For example, the warrant that TV mirrors real life is an argument and not a fact that would require evidence.

Charting your own arguments and others helps you to visualize the meat of your discussion. All the flourishes are gone and the bones revealed. Even if you cannot fit an argument neatly into the boxes, the attempt forces you to ask important questions about your claim, your warrant, and possible rebuttals. By charting your argument you are forced to write your claim in a succinct manner and admit, for example, what you are using for evidence. Charted, you can see if your evidence is scanty, if it relies too much on one kind of evidence over another, and if it needs additional support. This charting might also reveal a disconnect between your claim and your warrant or cause you to reevaluate your claim altogether.

Pragma-Dialects: A Fancy Word for a Close Look at Argumentation

The field of rhetoric has always been interdisciplinary and so it has no problem including argumentation theory. Developed in the Speech Communication Department at the University of Amsterdam, pragma-dialectics is a study of argumentation that focuses on the ethics of one’s logical choices in creating an argument. In Fundamentals of Argumentation Theory: A Handbook of Historical Backgrounds and Contemporary Developments, Frans H. van Eemeren and Rob Grootendorst describe argumentation, simply, as “characterized by the use of language for resolving a difference of opinion” (275). While much of this work quite literally looks at actual speech situations, the work can easily be applied to the classroom and to broader political situations.

While this version of argumentation deals with everything from ethics to arrangement, what this field adds to rhetorical studies is a new approach to argument fallacies. Fallacies are often the cause of the mystery feeling we get when we come across faulty logic or missteps in an argument.

What follows is an adaptation of Frans van Eemeren, Rob Grootendorst, and Francesca Snoeck Henkemans’ “violations of the rules for critical engagement” from their book What follows is an adaptation of Frans van Eemeren, Rob Grootendorst, and Francesca Snoeck Henkemans’ “violations of the rules for critical engagement” from their book Argumentation: Analysis, Evaluation, Presentation (109). Rather than discuss rhetorical fallacies in a list (ad hominem, straw man, equivocation, etc.), they argue that there should be rules for proper argument to ensure fairness, logic, and a solution to the problem being addressed. Violating these rules causes a fallacious argument and can result in a standoff rather than a solution. (109). Rather than discuss rhetorical fallacies in a list (ad hominem, straw man, equivocation, etc.), they argue that there should be rules for proper argument to ensure fairness, logic, and a solution to the problem being addressed. Violating these rules causes a fallacious argument and can result in a standoff rather than a solution.

While fallacious arguments, if purposeful, pose real ethical problems, most people do not realize they are committing fallacies when they create an argument. To purposely attack someone’s character rather than their argument (ad hominem) is not only unethical, but demonstrates lazy argumentation. However, confusing cause and effect might simply be a misstep that needs fixing. It is important to admit that many fallacies, though making an argument somewhat unsound, can be rhetorically savvy. While we know that appeals to pity (or going overboard on the emotional appeal) can often demonstrate a lack of knowledge or evidence, they often work. As such, these rules present argumentation as it would play out in a utopian world where everyone is calm and logical, where everyone cares about resolving the argument at hand, rather than winning the battle, and where everyone plays by the rules. Despite the utopian nature of the list, it offers valuable insight into argument flaws and offers hope for better methods of deliberation.

What follows is an adaptation of the approach to argumentation found in Chapters 7 and 8 of Argumentation: Analysis, Evaluation, Presentation (Eemeren, et al. 109-54). The rule is listed first, followed by an example of how the rule is often violated.

1. The Freedom Rule

“Parties must not prevent each other from putting forward standpoints or casting doubt on standpoints” (110).

There are many ways to stop an individual from giving her own argument. This can come in the form of a physical threat but most often takes the form of a misplaced critique. Instead of focusing on the argument, the focus is shifted to the character of the writer or speaker (ad hominem) or to making the argument (or author) seem absurd (straw man) rather than addressing its actual components. In the past decade, “Bush is stupid” became a common ad hominem attack that allowed policy to go unaddressed. To steer clear of the real issues of global warming, someone might claim “Only a fool would believe global warming is real” or “Trying to suck all of the CO 2 out of the atmosphere with giant greenhouse gas machines is mere science fiction, so we should look at abandoning all this green house gas nonsense.”

2. The Burden-of-Proof Rule

“A party who puts forward a standpoint is obliged to defend it if asked to do so” (113).

This is one of my favorites. It is clear and simple. If you make an argument, you have to provide evidence to back it up. During the 2008 Presidential debates, Americans watched as all the candidates fumbled over the following question about healthcare: “How will this plan actually work?” If you are presenting a written argument, this requirement can be accommodated through quality, researched evidence applied to your standpoint.

3. The Standpoint Rule

“A party’s attack on a standpoint must relate to the standpoint that has indeed been advanced by the other party” (116).

Your standpoint is simply your claim, your basic argument in a nutshell. If you disagree with another person’s argument or they disagree with yours, the actual standpoint and not some related but more easily attacked issue must be addressed. For example, one person might argue that the rhetoric of global warming has created a multi-million dollar green industry benefiting from fears over climate change. This is an argument about the effects of global warming rhetoric, not global warming itself. It would break the standpoint rule to argue that the writer/speaker does not believe in global warming. This is not the issue at hand.

4. The Relevance Rule

“A party may defend his or her standpoint only by advancing argumentation related to that standpoint” (119).

Similar to #3, this rule assures that the evidence you use must actually relate to your standpoint. Let’s stick with same argument: global warming has created a green industry benefiting from fears over climate change. Under this rule, your evidence would need to offer examples of the rhetoric and the resulting businesses that have developed since the introduction of green industries. It would break the rules to simply offer attacks on businesses who sell “eco-friendly” products.

5. The Unexpressed Premise Rule

“A party may not falsely present something as a premise that has been left unexpressed by the other party or deny a premise that he or she has left implicit” (121).

This one sounds a bit complex, though it happens nearly every day. If you have been talking to another person and feel the need to say, “That’s NOT what I meant,” then you have experienced a violation of the unexpressed premise rule. Overall, the rule attempts to keep the argument on track and not let it stray into irrelevant territory. The first violation of the rule, to falsely present what has been left unexpressed, is to rephrase someone’s standpoint in a way that redirects the argument. One person might argue, “I love to go to the beach,” and another might respond by saying “So you don’t have any appreciation for mountain living.” The other aspect of this rule is to camouflage an unpopular idea and deny that it is part of your argument. For example, you might argue that “I have nothing against my neighbors. I just think that there should be a noise ordinance in this part of town to help cut down on crime.” This clearly shows that the writer does believe her neighbors to be criminals but won’t admit it.

6. The Starting Point Rule

“No party may falsely present a premise as an accepted starting point, or deny a premise representing an accepted starting point” (128).

Part of quality argumentation is to agree on the opening standpoint. According to this theory, argument is pointless without this kind of agreement. It is well known that arguing about abortion is nearly pointless as long as one side is arguing about the rights of the unborn and the other about the rights of women. These are two different starting points.

7. The Argument Scheme Rule

“A standpoint may not be regarded as conclusively defended if the defense does not take place by means of an appropriate argument scheme that is correctly applied” (130).

This rule is about argument strategy. Argument schemes could take up another paper altogether. Suffice it to say that schemes are ways of approaching an argument, your primary strategy. For example, you might choose emotional rather than logical appeals to present your position. This rule highlights the fact that some argument strategies are simply better than others. For example, if you choose to create an argument based largely on attacking the character of your opponent rather than the issues at hand, the argument is moot.

Argument by analogy is a popular and well worn argument strategy (or scheme). Essentially, you compare your position to a more commonly known one and make your argument through the comparison. For example, in the “Trust No One” argument above, the author equates the Watergate and Monica Lewinsky scandals. Since it is common knowledge that Watergate was a serious scandal, including Monica Lewinsky in the list offers a strong argument by analogy: the Lewinsky scandal did as much damage as Watergate. To break this rule, you might make an analogy that does not hold up, such as comparing a minor scandal involving a local school board to Watergate. This would be an exaggeration, in most cases.

8. The Validity Rule

“The reasoning in the argumentation must be logically valid or must be capable of being made valid by making explicit one or more unexpressed premises” (132).

This rule is about traditional logics. Violating this rule means that the parts of your argument do not match up. For example, your cause and effect might be off: If you swim in the ocean today you will get stung by a jelly fish and need medical care. Joe went to the doctor today. He must have been stung by a jelly fish. While this example is obvious (we do not know that Joe went swimming), many argument problems are caused by violating this rule.

9. The Closure Rule

“A failed defense of a standpoint must result in the protagonist retracting the standpoint, and a successful defense of a standpoint must result in the antagonist retracting his or her doubts” (134).

This seems the most obvious rule, yet it is one that most public arguments ignore. If your argument does not cut it, admit the faults and move on. If another writer/speaker offers a rebuttal and you clearly counter it, admit that the original argument is sound. Seems simple, but it’s not in our public culture. This would mean that George W. Bush would have to have a press conference and say, “My apologies, I was wrong about WMD,” or for someone who argued fervently that Americans want a single payer option for healthcare to instead argue something like, “The polls show that American’s want to change healthcare, but not through the single payer option. My argument was based on my opinion that single payer is the best way and not on public opinion.” Academics are more accustomed to retraction because our arguments are explicitly part of particular conversations. Rebuttals and renegotiations are the norm. That does not make them any easier to stomach in an “argument is war” culture.

10. The Usage Rule

“Parties must not use any formulations that are insufficiently clear or confusingly ambiguous, and they must interpret the formulations of the other party as carefully and accurately as possible” (136).

While academics are perhaps the worst violators of this rule, it is an important one to discuss. Be clear. I notice in both student and professional academic writing that a confusing concept often means confusing prose, longer sentences, and more letters in a word. If you cannot say it/write it clearly, the concept might not yet be clear to you. Keep working. Ethical violations of this rule happen when someone is purposefully ambiguous so as to confuse the issue. We can see this on all the “law” shows on television or though deliberate propaganda.

Activity: Following the Rules

1. Choose a topic to discuss in class or as a group (ex. organic farming, campus parking, gun control).

a. Choose one of the rules above and write a short argument (a sentence) that clearly violates the rule. Be prepared to explain WHY it violates the rule.

b. Take the fallacious argument you just created in exercise a) and correct it. Write a solid argument that conforms to the rule.

Food for thought: The above rules offer one way to think about shaping an argument paper. Imagine that the argument for your next paper is a dialogue between those who disagree about your topic. After doing research, write out the primary standpoint for your paper. For example: organic farming is a sustainable practice that should be used more broadly. Next, write out a standpoint that might offer a refutation of the argument. For example: organic farming cannot supply all of the food needed by the world’s population. Once you have a sense of your own argument and possible refutations, go through the rules and imagine how you might ethically and clearly provide arguments that support your point without ignoring the opposition.

Even though our current media and political climate do not call for good argumentation, the guidelines for finding and creating it abound. There are many organizations such as America Speaks (www. americaspeaks.org) that are attempting to revive quality, ethical deliberation. On the personal level, each writer can be more deliberate in their argumentation by choosing to follow some of these methodical approaches to ensure the soundness and general quality of their argument. The above models offer the possibility that we can imagine modes of argumentation other than war. The final model, pragma-dialectics, especially, seems to consider argument as a conversation that requires constant vigilance and interaction by participants. Argument as conversation, as new metaphor for public deliberation, has possibilities.

Additional Activities

• Read Stanley Fish’s blog entry titled “Democracy and Education” (fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/0...ation/#more-57). Choose at least two of the responses to Fish’s argument that students are not entitled to free speech rights in the classroom and compare them using the different argumentation models listed above.
• Following the pragma-dialectic rules, create a fair and balanced rebuttal to Fish’s argument in his “Democracy and Education” blog entry.
• Use Toulmin’s vocabulary to build an argument. Start with a claim and then fill in the chart with your own research, warrants, qualifiers, and rebuttals.
• I would like to extend a special thanks to Nina Paley for giving permission to use this cartoon under Creative Commons licensing, free of charge. Please see Paley’s great work at www.ninapaley.com.

Works Cited

Coulter, Ann. Guilty: Liberal “Victims” and Their Assault on America . New York: Crown Forum, 2009. Print.

Crowley, Sharon, and Debra Hawhee. Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students . 4th ed. New York: Pearson/Longman, 2009. Print.

Eemeren, Frans H. van, and Rob Grootendorst. Fundamentals of Argumentation Theory: A Handbook of Historical Backgrounds and Contemporary Developments. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1996. Print.

Eemeren, Frans H. van, Rob Grootendorst, and Francesca Snoeck Henkemans. Argumentation: Analysis, Evaluation, Presentation. Mahwah: Erlbaum, NJ: 2002. Print.

Fish, Stanley. “Democracy and Education.” New York Times 22 July 2007: n. pag. Web. 5 May 2010. <fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/0...and-education/>.

Honeycutt, Lee. “Aristotle’s Rhetoric: A Hypertextual Resource Compiled by Lee Honeycutt.” 21 June 2004. Web. 5 May 2010. <www2.iastate.edu/~honeyl/Rhetoric/index.html>.

Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1980. Print.

Murphy, James. Quintilian On the Teaching and Speaking of Writing. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1987. Print.

Paxton, Pamela, and Jeremy Adam Smith. “Not Everyone Is Out to Get You.” UTNE Reader Sept.-Oct. 2009: 44-45. Print.

“Plato, The Dialogues of Plato, vol. 1 [387 AD].” Online Library of Liberty, n.d. Web. 5 May 2010. < http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php...#chapter_39482 >.

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