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Black Sheep – Conversation Lesson

Kristin: Y’know, AJ, just getting back from having visited my family in Georgia, it was…it was very trying dealing with my brothers, as usual. It’s interesting because with the younger one, y’know, he was always considered the black sheep, I think, growing up. But somehow, and he still is a black sheep, but somehow that’s now gotten transferred over to my older brother, too. I know you’ve even said at times like what the hell happened to him?

AJ: You’ve got like two black sheep in your family. It’s not…usually you think of one, y’know?

Kristin: Right. But, y’know, I’ve been thinking, too, like back when I was in college I actually thought that maybe I was starting to be considered the black sheep simply because I wasn’t following this way of life, this traditional way that my parents were wanting me to follow. Thanks to you…thanks to your influence.

AJ: My evil influence.

Kristin: Really, thanks to your influence. And, y’know, I guess a black sheep is…has kind of a negative connotation but I think, too, it can be viewed as someone who’s just very different, whether it’s negative, y’know, they’ve gotten involved with drugs or whatever, or for me it was more just not, y’know, having a very different lifestyle than I grew up with and that my family was…thought that…my parents thought I should follow.

AJ: Mm.

Joe: Yeah, I think you’re actually right because, y’know, if you were to look up what black sheep means, like in a dictionary or online, it would mean like someone who’s actually a disgrace to like the family. But I don’t think of it only in those terms. I agree with you. I think of it in terms of someone who’s just doing something that’s radically different than the other members of the family. And sometimes it’s just…you could even just say it’s not as accepted because what they’re doing is different. So it doesn’t have to be someone who’s doing something disgraceful necessarily.

AJ: Yeah, yeah, kind of like Kristin’s example like if you have a family that’s very stable and traditional and, y’know, they all live in one little small town. And then one member of the family goes off and becomes a world traveler and they’re, y’know, they’re living this crazy adventurous life…yeah, they’re kind of thought of by the family in a way as the black sheep because they’re, they’re the really different one, even though they’re not really doing anything disgraceful or negative. But, y’know, it could also be religion, like if you had a really religious family.

Kristin: Yeah.

AJ: And then one person’s not religious, or the opposite. The family’s not religious and then one person becomes super religious.

Kristin: Right, I never even looked at it that way.

AJ: That’s another sort of…

Kristin: Yeah.

AJ: …y’know, they could also be considered the black…they’re kind of the outcast of the family a little bit.

Kristin: Right, yeah, that’s a good way of saying it, the outcast. Yeah, disgrace is kind of a harsh explanation.

Joe: You know, in my family, my mother’s brother, he said he kind of used to consider himself the black sheep of the family. And I remember when he said it, it was really the first time I’d ever heard that term. And the reason he said that was not because he was some grand failure or he was morally corrupt. It was because he had long hair and a beard in the 1970s and, y’know, no one else in my family did at that time. And at that time my entire family lived in New York. I mean it was as if nobody left, right? And he decided that he was going to move to the west part…western part of the United States. Colorado is where he actually ended up. So that made him feel as if he was a black sheep, just the fact that he moved away from the family. And, y’know, because he looked a little different. But, yeah, y’know, something as small as that might even warrant such a description.

AJ: Yeah, I think, y’know, families are like little societies in a way. They have their own kind of normal behaviors and beliefs and all of that. And so when someone is a non-conformist within the family, y’know, it’s kind of like, y’know, in society as a whole, y’know, that some members of a family…usually it’s, I don’t know, usually we have this idea that it’s one person. But like, Kristin, like you said, it could be more than one. But when a member of the family breaks with what’s sort of normal in that family then they are considered the black sheep.

Kristin: Yeah, it’s interesting with me having such a different lifestyle than my family. Like, y’know, when I quit eating meat and I wanted to travel around the world and, y’know, I didn’t want to work a 9:00 to 5:00 job just so I’d have health insurance like my parents wanted me to. These were like radical things to them at the time. But I think that they’ve gotten so used to it at this point, it’s been 20 years, I guess. And

they used to tease me, too. They don’t even do that anymore. They just accept it. And it probably helps, too, that, y’know, now the focus is on my brothers because they’re struggling…

AJ: They’re having so many problems.

Kristin: They’re having so many problems so they look to me like I’m this responsible one. I’m the, y’know, the responsible one and I have made something with my life. So…

AJ: So now they’re the really…they’ve become the black sheep. Like initially it seemed they were the ones going to be sort of the normal stable ones maybe, in your parents’ mind, and then now they realize, oh, no, that’s not the case.

Kristin: At least my older brother, yeah…younger brother, not so much. But, yeah, definitely my older brother’s done like 180 degree turn.

AJ: Mmm.

Joe: Yeah, y’know, when you mentioned being vegetarian, how that could be considered by some to make you a black sheep in a group or in a family, I can certainly identify with that. I mean it was really different to my family when I first changed my eating habits. And, y’know, growing up in a family that’s, y’know, Italian-American and also German-American, I should say, food was such a huge part of coming together, y’know. Family time was often about eating and my family was always really concerned about what are we going to feed him, y’know? And they were really worried about it. So me being different in that sense, even though it seems kind of minor, but, y’know, 20 years ago that was one other thing that almost made me seem a little bit like a black sheep. But when I hear that term black sheep now, I’m sure you guys probably remember this, when I hear that term black sheep now, I think of that movie with Chris Farley, Black Sheep. And how everyone in his family is a successful businessman and I think what happens is his father passes away and he’s suddenly in charge of the family business. And he is the exact opposite of his father and he basically, I think, drives the family business into the ground.

AJ: Yeah, mostly I feel like as we talk about this, like we need a new phrase in English in a way. Because we’re kind of talking about two things, on the traditional idea of a black sheep is the one who’s…who causes problems, y’know. And like in my family we have one of those, too, and it’s just always the one that’s always seems to be in trouble in some way or another, financially or whatever. But then there’s also the idea that we’ve discussed of the one who’s just sort of different, but maybe in a more positive way. And that’s not exactly a black sheep. Like I consider myself that person in my family. I’m the…most of my family lives in a small town in Indiana. I’m the one traveling around the world and doing

all this stuff. But I’m still successful. I don’t cause problems. So I’m not really the black sheep. I don’t know what you’d call it but we need a new phrase in English, the one where you mean the non-conformist one and then we got the black sheep who’s the problem.

Kristin: Right.