Communication

We have an amusing family story about my newly wed grandparents. Wanting to be the best wife ever, my very young grandmother had asked her husband about his favorite foods. Chocolate cake was his all time favorite dessert. So, she began making chocolate cakes. For weeks she made every kind of chocolate cake known to man. He ate them but never with the gusto she expected. Finally, sick to death of chocolate cakes, she made a yellow cake with chocolate frosting. She placed it on the table unprepared for his response. “Oh, honey, you made my favorite-chocolate cake!”


When Brent and I were married, we had some similar experiences. I am a New England woman. I cook good old fashioned New England food. My husband is a complete Westerner. He is a meat and potatoes kind of guy. We had been together for a few months when he made a face after taking his first bite of my famous baked beans. “Why do you keep putting sugar in the beans?” he complained.

The entire family stared at him in shocked silence! “How else would I make them?” was my reply. He proceeded to tell me how to make “western beans”. The next time I made beans, I followed his recipe. My kids took one bite and complained, “These taste funny, Mom. Where is the sugar?”

There have been a number of foods that we use the same name for but cook differently. I finally came up with a bit of a solution. Now, the conversation goes something like this, “What do you want for dinner tonight, dear?” I’ll ask.

“Tacos” is the reply.

“What do tacos look like to you?” I ask. He responds and we are on the same page.

I’ve come to apply this in other areas of communication. “I’m going to work in the yard on Saturday.” He will state. Since his idea of yard work and mine differ, I’ll ask him what the job looks like to him. There we are, on the same page again.

I’ve begun noticing that many situations that arise with people outside the home are caused by the same assumption. We think that we are talking about the same things when in reality we all come from such different backgrounds that we may really be talking apples and oranges.

Last week, I was on the phone with a client who wanted me to clean her empty apartment. During the conversation she asked, “How handy are you?”

My reply was, “I’m right here in town.” It took a few minutes to realize that she was referring to my fix-it skills not my close proximity! And it got me wondering how many misunderstandings could be avoided if we patiently asked the question, “What does that look like to you?” instead of getting angry and thinking people are stupid.

That’s the view from my side of the street, what’s yours?