Family Love
Lately I have been experiencing some very trying times within my family. And not with just one or two members. Imagine how low my self-confidence is and how high my self-doubt is. From deductive reasoning one may come to the conclusion that since I am the common denominator for all of these tiffs, I am therefore the problem. But I am going to insist that I’m a lover not a fighter.
“You don’t choose your family. They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them.”
Whenever I read this quote by Reverend Tutu, I often wonder if God’s thoughtful pinch to me got mixed up with someone else’s. I’m pretty sure that I am not the only one who wonders this. And I believe it’s perfectly normal to question why God (or anyone) would think pairing me up with people who are totally different than me would be beneficial.
For example, the moments when my son says something horrible (something I would never think, let alone ever say out loud) and I feel like it is a direct reflection of my parenting skills I’m thinking, “How is this a gift?” Or when I am yelling at my daughter so loudly that my veins are popping out of my neck, I’m thinking, “I’m sure God did not have this in mind when he put me in this family.”
Families are tough to figure out which is why therapy sessions and self-help books are in big demand. And ironically the family members like me who want to “fix” the problems end up being the ones who supposedly stir the pot. Yes, family dynamics are exactly why shows like Succession, Yellowstone and every soap opera ever produced do so well. We watch those shows because we want to see if someone else’s family is worse off than our own. We want our crazy to be normal compared to others’ crazy. We ALL compare our families to other families. It’s what we do. Circling back to Reverend Tutu’s quote - family is something that we can’t pick out for ourselves or exchange for a new one.
With that said, we can go thru life being mad about the cards we were dealt or we can start looking for the pinches we were given because of our family dynamics. I am always fascinated with the factors in a person’s life that are the contributors to their circumstances. Besides family - birth order, social economic backgrounds, nationality, race, culture, health history, male vs female, learning differences, religious beliefs, languages and nowadays political choices etc. By making a conscious effort to look for the lessons, the blessings, the gifts of our similarities and differences, the family dynamics begin to be less complicated and more celebrated.
June 2019 - when both kids still let us hug them in public.
When it comes to family love, this type of love is given and received in a hundred different ways and it is very personal. Being open to giving and receiving love is key when it comes to family. For instance, a new way for me to show my love to my son is to be quiet even when I want to say so much. Today, on the way to the hockey championship game, I wanted to tell my son that I hoped we could start our relationship all over. I wanted to put our fights behind us and forget them. I wanted to say that we needed a fresh start and that we should forgive each other for all the hurtful words we recently said to each other. But I didn’t say a word about any of this. I knew that his mind was on the upcoming game and this was not the time or place to have the conversation - even if my intention was positive and I wanted to “fix” a situation between us. Staying silent was hard for me because I wear my emotions on my sleeve and I felt like I had to change my usual ways in order to respect his boundaries. In other words, I had to be thoughtful for both of our sakes. If I had brought up my thoughts in a vulnerable way during a time when his mind was focused on something else, my feelings would have been hurt for sure because he would have been distracted about what lay ahead. {Sounds like I’ve been thru this before.}
July 2021 - Costa Rica. Family bonding via surf and sand.
As I continue to go along this journey of finding thoughtfulness in all sorts of shapes and sizes, I am collecting unofficial data about families. One personal study I am conducting is the benefits of having a family of four children as opposed to 3, 2 or 1 kid(s). I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again, those families with four kids are not only brave but smart. The four siblings learn early on that team work gets the best results and so it is instant cooperation. Most of us would think chaotic and unruly but it’s rather harmonious most of the time. Another piece of family data that I am hanging onto is from parents who have admitted to me that their teenagers do not tell them anything anymore and they don’t even want to hang out with them. OUCH! The silver lining is that most of the teenagers come full circle and hang out with the parents again. That is a relief to hear. And the most important information about family that I learned about a year ago is that I can’t make anyone love me; even my kids. It sucked to hear that. A little part of my heart broke because I always had high aspirations to be the best mom ever since I always felt like I got “ripped off” from having the best mom when I was growing up. In retrospect, my mom did the best she could with what she had and so I have years of dissolving to do.
St. Patrick’s Day 2018. At this time, both kids would tell us things and hung out with us on holidays.
I bring up family love because at the beginning of 2022, I made a resolution, my 365 for this year, which is to concentrate on my immediate family. This is the year that I am consciously working towards being a better wife, mother, daughter, sister, aunt. To be all of the above starts with me discovering and being aware of all the gifts that come about from being a member of this family. Gifts that I bring to the family and gifts that the family brings to me. It’s much easier to figure out all that than it is to get different family members.
Pinches,
Barb
