How would you feel if your family had a “telling of feelings” after dinner every night, as is done in The Giver by Lois Lowry?

For this assignment, your teacher clearly expects you to share how you would feel if your family had such a custom.  But I can certainly share what my feelings would be.  As a parent or as a child, I would not be pleased with this ritual because of the purpose of the ritual and the invasion of privacy it represents.  The sharing of feelings is meant to ascertain whether or not anyone in the family...

For this assignment, your teacher clearly expects you to share how you would feel if your family had such a custom.  But I can certainly share what my feelings would be.  As a parent or as a child, I would not be pleased with this ritual because of the purpose of the ritual and the invasion of privacy it represents.  The sharing of feelings is meant to ascertain whether or not anyone in the family has any feelings that would threaten the community in any way, which would be pretty much any normal human emotion such as desire, envy, or anger.  Once someone reveals an emotion, it is clear that he or she is talked out of it, or in the case of sexual desire, is given a pill to repress it.  And even in a close family, people should be entitled to keep their feelings to themselves, if they are so inclined.  As a child, I certainly would have hated having to do this every evening, and as a parent, I cannot imagine invading my own children's privacy this way. The community has created a ritual that is akin to mind policing. Those are my thoughts and feelings on the question, and now it is your turn to share what you think, although not every night at dinner!