by Stephanie Palazzolo, managing editor

I pause the moment, my family playing out like a cheesy TV sitcom. My little sister’s rhythmically pounding the table, half-jokingly chanting, “Burn the Patriarchy!” Next to me, my eight-year-old brother is jumping up and down in his chair, screaming World War II facts (his newest obsession) at the top of his lungs. My dad, meanwhile, is doing a pretty good impression of Donald Trump, my mom trying not to choke on her food as she giggles.

And then, there’s me.

I’ve never considered myself to be a particularly shy person, but next to my boisterous family, I feel more like a houseplant than a human being.

It all started when my sister returned from her debate camp in Austin, burning with new liberal ideas and beliefs that clashed with my parents’ more conservative ones. From her first night back, every family dinner suddenly turned into a full-on debate, as each generation posed their own arguments and counterarguments. Between sips of water and forkfuls of food, we would yell at each other over the table, touching on everything from dress code to race relations, feminism to George Bush. Even my younger brother chipped in, sounding like a strange Russian parrot as he skipped around the table, repeating what my sister and I said or throwing in random facts about Vladimir Putin (his second greatest obsession other than World War II). I, on the other hand, often found myself as a mediator of sorts, a more peaceful connection between the extremes of my parents and my siblings.

You would think that weeks of constant arguing with my family would lead to some bruised egos and hard feelings, which, I’m not going to lie, has definitely happened. But strangely enough, it’s been the only thing that can bridge our generational gap of several decades.

We only have a limited amount of small talk, and after we’ve exhausted our daily conversation about the weather and school, we used to resort to stuffing food down our throats quickly enough to avoid any other awkward conversation. But now, it usually only takes a few minutes of silence before my sister blurts out something controversial about abortion and our entire family again erupts in a heated discussion. Our differing opinions seem to be one of the only things that can bring my family together.

Over time, I’ve found myself becoming more open-minded as well, more welcome to a variety of viewpoints and discussions. Just as two people with the same beliefs build on each other and become more extreme, the different opinions of a room full of people usually travel towards a more moderate position after an hour of discussion. Even on days when I can’t tell if my dad’s love of Ben Carson is ironic or not, I still understand that his opinions are based on his own life, and the experiences of a 60-year-old man are a lot different than those of a 16-year-old girl.

Sure, I might never be able to convince my mom that Bernie Sanders is a legitimately cool guy, and my dad probably will always think rap is a bunch of gibberish, but you know what?

Maybe that’s okay.