Giving New Meaning to Parenting

What do you stand for?  What does your family stand for?  If you had to draft a mission statement or a purpose, what would it be?

Calvin Trillin wrote a great book a number of years ago entitled Family Man (I highly recommend the audio book- I listened so much I wore out the cassette tapes) where he said that in families, there’s often an unstated message or theme that runs through the family.  It could be “We are working very hard to give you everything we didn’t have growing up” or “We expect you to go on and be a great success” or “Live out our dreams because we were too afraid to do it ourselves” or other statements ranging from the positive to the more tragic such as “Since your father left us, I have given up completely and you are on your own”.  Themes and statements can change over time, but they can kind of shape what your family is all about.

In my family growing up, there was a lot of change.  My mother has been married and divorced three times.  She now lives with my younger sister, who is dependent on her after a traumatic head injury and subsequent problems.  The theme seemed to change often, and as we have all grown up and found separate identities and lives, we’re all creating our own themes.  While I think my mom’s theme is still “life is tough and disappointing and I never got what I feel I deserve”, I hope mine is “I am thankful for all we have, and I hope we can help other people find what they need to reach a place of peace and happiness.”

Holidays bring people together, and families together.  For some families, this is a joyous occasion to cherish and spend time together, celebrating all that is good.  For others, family over the holidays means stress, competition, one-upsmanship, comparisons, jealousy, and general unhappiness.  I really wish that my time with my mom was always the former, but it can frequently be the latter.  In part, this is because I think it’s hard for her to relinquish that sense of control she had as just our Mom for years.  I think it’s hard for her to admit that she may not always be right; and regardless, preserving the feelings and autonomy of her kids, making us feel validated, even if she doesn’t agree with our choices, is still important to preserve our relationship.

As we get older, our relationship with our families of origin become more and more voluntary.  You don’t HAVE to go home for the holidays.  You don’t HAVE to call home every day or every week.  You can make your own choices, have your own life, and choose whether or not to include them.  Some people choose not to include their family of origin at all, or only include certain people, while others take a much more all-inclusive view of life.  That’s not to say that making choices to do things without your family, to break traditions is easy, but sometimes it may just be necessary.

One of the biggest sins we can make is taking each other for granted.  With your family and friends, it becomes more and more important each year to make sure that people know how you feel, and how much you care.  It doesn’t have to be a fancy gift, or even a card, but just something to let them know that you value them and care.

I lost my stepfather when I was 25-the man I called Daddy all my growing up years, and there’s not a moment during the holidays I don’t wish he were here.  When I see my brother make certain gestures, it brings him back for me, and I miss him tons. But what I learned from his passing is that life is not infinite and sometimes people you love pass away unexpectedly.  As a result, I try to make sure that I tell everyone I care about how I feel, and make an effort not to take people for granted, because our opportunity to do so is limited.

With this in mind, I hope your holiday season is filled with love and joy.  I hope that you will find reasons to take joy in the life of even your most prickly relative, and perhaps the kindness you show will be reflected with more of the same, rather than hostility for a change. 

Maybe working on forgiveness for the past and making the future a bit brighter will help, since no one can change the past-they can only, at best, apologize.  And I hope you find peace and love as part of your mission statement this year-because those are the family values we all need to pass on to our children.

by Whitney Hoffman

Photo graciously provided by {tribal} photography, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved