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Home::Family
Family as an Entity
Author : Skye Thomas
As a mother, I feel that it's my duty to look out for the needs
of each individual in the family. I believe that no one person,
child nor adult, is more important than any other. Every single
member of the family is unique and special and their needs are
unique and special. Even if all kids live under the same house
rules, they're taught and enforced differently depending on each
one's learning curve and personality type. Also the adults in
the house are to be equal regardless of who raises the kids and
who brings home the money. Everyone's emotional health,
spiritual health, and physical health are equally important. But
there's a hidden family member that sometimes gets forgotten
when we're juggling the needs of everyone. What about the family
as a unit? How does it weigh into the equation?
First let's look at the dynamics of the individuals in the
family. The adults can't make themselves the center of the
universe. Parents who are so caught up in their own careers,
relationships, or just in their own heads all of the time, often
have lonely depressed children who doubt their parents' love and
devotion. Studies have already shown a very high percentage of
teens experimenting with drugs and alcohol are from homes where
the parents are too self absorbed to notice or to pay attention
to what's happening with their own kids.
On the other hand, it's very easy as parents to sacrifice
ourselves for the greater good of the family. I suspect that
this very dynamic plays into the resentments and underlying
tensions found in most households. The adults often give up
their dream jobs, drop out of college, or stops having a social
life outside of the family because at some point along the way
it seemed like the answer to some problem. For whatever reason,
there's no time, energy, or money left for the adults when all
is said and done. They seldom get to pick up those pieces of
themselves that they sacrificed along the way. The parents
shouldn't become martyrs to their kids or the family. It's up to
the parents to find a healthy balance between the two extremes.
I've heard a lot of people say that the children should always
come first at any cost. I don't agree. Children who are raised
to be the center of the universe grow up to be adults who
believe that they have a rightful place as the center of
everyone else's universe too. It's unfair to teach the kids that
they are more important then everyone else. They become
self-esteem monsters and bullies. The real world will teach them
a very difficult lesson. People won't like them no matter how
special Mommy and Daddy think they are. It's better to teach
children that everyone is equal in regards to needs, hopes and
dreams, responsibilities, and other dynamics of getting along in
the world. Mommy's need for peace and quiet once in awhile is
every bit as important as little Billy's need to jump and run
and play. The key again is for the parents to find a balance
between the opposing needs.
The hidden entity is the family as a unit. I've watched families
that found a balance between everyone's needs and there really
wasn't a family left when all was said and done. The parents are
busy scheduling their own lives while the teenagers are living
independent lives dropping by the house to eat and sleep, but
otherwise completely disconnected from the family and the little
ones are so busy with soccer leagues and music lessons and play
dates with their friends that they have no real sense of what
family is about. Everyone is happy, busy, flourishing
individuals, but the family as a unit has almost completely
disappeared.
I've also seen families that went the opposite direction and
nobody got their personal needs met because everyone had to
constantly sacrifice for the greater good of the family. Your
career is decided at birth as well as whom you will marry
because you must uphold the family name or the family
traditions. Those people come to hate what family represents and
want to bust out of the prison of it all. Once again, the answer
lies in the parents needing to find a balance between the family
and the individuals.
As a mother, it's my job to juggle the needs and dreams of every
single member of our household. I always try to remember that
secret entity "family" and what is it that the family needs and
dreams of. I teach my kids to not only look at how their needs
impact each other, but also how it affects the family's needs.
For example, if I let my teenagers spend the extra money after
the bills are paid each month, then how will the family get to
go to Disneyland this summer? They are an active part in helping
to determine the family's needs and goals as well as their own.
I am very much a part of who gets included. "Wait a minute guys,
did you forget that I need a new monitor for my computer before
you get another game for your Xbox?"
In so doing, they come to understand that they're important, but
not more important then me and I'm not less important then they
are. The two-year-old's needs are just as important as the
teenagers' needs. Everyone makes sacrifices at times, but nobody
is forced to sacrifice all of the time. The kids understand that
no one person is more important then any other. They also
understand that the family as a whole is just as important as
each individual member within it. We have an amazingly strong
family bond as well as each of us having very strong sense of
personal worth. I feel that this may be the most important thing
I do, balancing the needs of everyone including the family as a
whole.
Copyright 2004, Skye Thomas, Tomorrow's Edge
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