By Rowel Jiménez
Part of me really wishes that I didn’t ask for this family meeting, but I couldn’t stand to keep this up any longer. I’d never had one of these conversations before, but, knowing my parents, it’s best to come to them prepared.
I take one more look at my phone. My argument is laid out in three primary points, followed by lines I’ve scripted to make sure I am clear on my view. Meanwhile, my parents lean on the kitchen island. Dad is on his phone, while Mom has set hers on the table to listen.
First, I inhale, then exhale, and finally, I start.
“I don’t want to do debate club anymore.”
My dad glances up from his phone. “It’s only been two months, you can’t quit,” he says.
“Yes, and I know I wanted to join the debate team, but…”
I want to say that I expected it to be the grandiose speech deliveries of movies like The Great Debaters, but neither of them had seen that movie. I turn back to my phone.
“Number one, time commitment: they ask me to come in every Tuesday and Thursday at six, and I’ve tried waiting after school ends until the meeting, but three hours is too long,” I say. “But if I come home, I only get thirty minutes before I have to pack my things up and go. Then, on the return trip, the bus is late, and I have to go straight to bed. I cannot keep doing this every other day.”
“Okay,” my mom says, preparing to give her obvious rebuttal. “But you said that you wanted to do it. You just started high school, how can you give up so fast?”
Thankfully I had planned for this and added a secondary point for my next reason. “That is true, but, number two: the club isn’t fun,” I say.
“That’s no reason to quit,” my dad butts in.
“Well, it should be. We don’t plan speeches, we get two minutes maximum to talk, and we don’t even get to come up with our own arguments. The actual debates are about them giving us a sheet of paper and asking us to read it as fast as possible. I cannot even hear what the other people are saying half the time. Why am I going out of my way to be there if it’s not even fun?” I say, feeling my throat dry up the longer I speak. But I persevere, needing to get my other point across:
“The main reason I stuck around for so long was because my friend was doing it with me, but he left two weeks ago, so now…”
My mom’s eyebrows perk up. I suck the words back down my throat, but they are out there. I’ve said the wrong thing. Now they’re never going to listen to me.
“You can’t quit the club just because your friend did,” my mom explains.
I put my phone down.
“Okay, then I won’t quit,” I exhale.
I start getting out of my seat, hoping to enjoy my Monday before the club pulls me in tomorrow.
“Hang on,” my mom says. I shift back into my seat, my leg suddenly twitching under the island with hope. “Keep at it until the end of the semester, then you can quit if you want.”
A little smile forms on my face. Maybe it isn’t the outcome I wanted, but a compromise is certainly better than a “because I say so.”
Rowel Jiménez (he/him) ‘27 is a television, radio and film major. He has been writing ever since he was little, but over time learned to appreciate other means of expression. In his free time, he likes to devote time to short stories or other projects with CitrusTV.
