WAYS TO CELEBRATE FAMILY LIFE IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
In this article I want to give you a number of suggestions about ways to celebrate family life in the Twenty-first century. The suggestions I will make are not meant to be exhaustive. First, I will make some general suggestions. These are applicable at any stage and any age of family life. Then I will make some specific suggestions for how parents and children can best relate to one another at specific stages of their development.
I. General Suggestions
A. Story Telling
In view of the fact that there is such an enormous cultural discontinuity between the generations, probably the most healing thing parents and children can do is to improve communication by forming what Bellah has called "communities of remembrance". Our communities are in danger of losing their sense of common history. The older half of us only know where we came from, the younger half of us only where we are going. The one has roots, the other wings.
In the past in my own Christian Reformed church community we have had a tendency to lecture our children about our common heritage, through sermons, books and catechism lessons. These lessons were dutifully learned, but, I fear, were also promptly forgotten by the young. The stuff did not live with them. It did not connect with where they live their lives. As a result they are in danger of losing a sense of what it means to be Christian and Reformed.
Other communities keep their history alive via story telling. This is the case, for example with the Mennonites. Mennonites induct their children into the Mennonite religion by teaching the history of the Mennonite people. I suggest that we ourselves emulate them. Within the family this process may go something like this, Johnny comes home from school and says: “ Guess what happened to me today". His story prompts his father to say: " I had a similar experience when I was young." And from there on the conversation flows. One story leads to another. Other family members join in and out of the many stories a pattern emerges like a multi-coloured quilt.
The church could also institute story telling evenings where young and old alike are given the opportunity to relate the events of their lives. I have had some experience with such congregation wide, cross-generational conversations. They are a lot of fun. They open up avenues of communication. They become celebrations that go on long into the evening.
B. Limiting Expectations
I have a sense that Christians, as a rule, tend to overload the family of the Twenty-first Century with functions it cannot possibly fulfill. Christian parents have expectations of their children that they cannot realize. They think that their children would never do the bad things that children of non-Christian parents do, but they do. Christian parents dream about how their children will turn out just as they have pictured it, but they hardly ever do. Part of loving one’s children is to let go of these expectations, these dreams. Parents do not have total control over their children's development.
I have a sense that Christian children, as a rule, tend to have unrealistic expectations of their parents. They believe that parents always know what to do and that they will always give you what you want. They feel that because they are their parents’ children they are entitled, and that their parents are obliged. They believe that their parents will always bail them out when they are in a jamb. Parents are supposed to. That's what parents are for.
Such children need to learn the difference between helping and being of help, between fixing things for you, and supporting you as you fix things yourself. Both Christian parents and children need to become more realistic about their expectations of family life as a whole.
They are unrealistic in their expectations because they identify their real family with their ideal family. They do not wish for a perfect family, but they believe that, because their family is Christian, it is perfect. And when something goes wrong, they wonder how such a thing could happen in a perfect family, and they blame themselves, or each other, for things that may very well been beyond their control. Christians do better to own up to the fact that Christian families are not perfect, that living in redeemed but still broken Christian families is par for the course. When they do, they are in a better position to celebrate the good experiences that are also part of Christian family life.
C. Giving Each Other Space
Parents and children do not always have to be together, to be a good family. The members of a family also have things to do other than being a family. We have to give one another space to do these things. For example, teenagers generally do not want to be with their parents. This is not a sign that they dislike them, but rather that they are working on separating themselves from their parents, which is a developmental task that is central during adolescence. Another example is this. Parents should not spend all their time being mom and dad to their children. They should also be able to spend time away from the kids, with each other, being husband and wife. Keeping our marriage intact is an essential part of being good parents. The best gift we can give to our children is a good marriage.
D. Parental Caring
The following suggestion is especially for parents. My advice to you is to commit yourself to caring for your children, not for the pay off, not for the rewards you will reap, not, so that your children will turn out "alright", but because it is intrinsically worth doing. It is meaningful to care for your children even when they do not thank you. Caring for others is what we were meant to do. It is a humane activity. In caring for our children we exercise our humanity and celebrate family life.
E. Prayer
It is important that parents should pray for their children. It is also important for children to pray for your parents. Only parents and children who have no problems in their families will fail to see how realistic prayer is. I can tell you from our own experience as parents how important prayer is. The older our children become, and the less we are able to influence them, the more, and the more fervently we pray, at all hours of the day, for long periods of time. Sometimes the only thing that parents and children have to hang on to is the fact that they are also children of God. If there is a difference between Christian parents and children and non-Christian parents and children, it is that Christian parents and children realize the strength of a threefold cord. When children and parents know themselves carried by God, they can afford to celebrate their family life.
Moreover, often what we need most to solve the problems of our families is to regain our perspective on the family. For that we need to step back, to reflect and to oversee, to "unite our hearts" as the bible has it. Well, prayer does that, so does Sunday rest and worship. In prayer and in rest and in worship we come to our own. I believe that the biblical notion of 'Sabbath', which includes rest, prayer and worship, is extremely important for the health of our busy family life in the Twenty-first Century.
F. Family Relations Within the Church Community
My last general suggestion for celebrating family life in the twenty-first Century is that we share our family troubles with each other, and care for one another's family troubles within the church. Why this false modesty, that makes us hide our family troubles from our sisters and brothers in Christ? A family is a relationship and relations can only flourish within the context of a community. Part of our problems in our family life is that we do not allow our families to be part of our church life. I recognize, of course that sharing one’s family problems is a confidential matter and that it requires trust. For this reason it is best done in cell groups or households of faith. Moreover, I think it would be helpful if the makeup of these groups would be intergenerational. Children, teenagers and single young adults have taught me a great deal about how to come to terms with problems in our family.
II. Specific Suggestions
The main premise of this article is that the central function of the family of the Twenty-first Century is not to be the chief socializer of children, but to be a safe haven, a home base for children and parents alike. The way this central function is articulated differs from one stage of development of our children to another.
A. Infancy: Synchronicity
Probably the most important ingredient in parent-child relations during infancy, beyond giving good physical care and protection, is synchronicity. A synchronic relationship is a relationship in which parents and children resonate in relation to one another. There is harmony in the relationship. What they do together "jives". A good parent is a sensitive parent. Sietse Buning in Style and Class states:" Love is to hang on and love is to let go. To do the one without at the same time doing the other is not love". To love like that, parents and children need to be sensitive toward one another. A parent's relationship to his or her children differs from child to child. There is no "cook book" for raising children, because children are born with differing temperaments. It is also harder to relate to one child than to another. The literature in developmental psychology has identified 3 types of personality in children, easy, difficult, and shy (or slow to warm up) personality. These personality types are evident from birth on and have an effect on how children are raised. So called ‘easy ‘ children are easy to relate to and to raise. With difficult children the opposite is true.
Shy children are also easy to raise but they take more effort to relate to. For instance, when a parent approaches such a child, the child often does not respond, or withdraws, because it is reticent. The parent feels rebuffed and holds back, which creates distance in the relationship. This makes the situation even more difficult for the shy child, who already has considerable difficulty to reach out, and for the parent who will be hesitant to try a second time. This scenario shows that children participate in their own upbringing.
For children to relate sensitively to their parents can be just as difficult, particularly to parents whose personality rubs them the wrong way. Such factors create dissonance in the parentchild relation. In general, synchronicity makes a child feel safe and connected and makes her parents feel competent. It allows both to celebrate their family bond with pleasure
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H. Toddler-grade school age child: loving consistency
Synchronicity continues to be important during the toddler and school age stage. What must be added to it is loving consistency in disciplining style. Generally, the literature in psychology identifies three parental disciplining styles, the authoritarian, the permissive and thew authoritative styles. In the authoritarian style parents command, and children are expected to obey, period. No discussion of the rules is permitted. In the permissive style of discipline the children decide how they are to behave. Parents do not interfere with, or support the choices of the children. In this discipline style also there is no discussion about the rules. By way of contrast, in authoritative styles of discipline the parents set the rules, but they typically discuss these rules with the children, to explain the reasons for these rules. Children are allowed to voice their opposition but in the final `analysis, if the children disagree, the parents' word goes.
It is generally accepted that the authoritative style is the best. Today's psychological wisdom is that children need love plus rules. They must learn that, within the context of love, disobedience has consequences. Loving consistency, which produces knowing that your parents care and knowing where you are at with them, provides a safe environment for school age children. This allows parents and children to celebrate their family life.
C. Teenage years: Authenticity
This brings us to the teenage years. Parents need to know that teenagers have an incredibly sensitive nose for hypocrisy. They do not respect customs of their parents if the parents themselves do not practice them. Nor do they respect those of the parental commands to them that the parents themselves do not obey. But what is genuinely alive in the life of their parents they will give a serious hearing. Being real impresses them. That does not mean that they will always adopt their parents’ values, morals, beliefs or conduct, at least not yet. The teenage years remain a period in life of children in which they try on this coat and that, to see which one fits. What teenage children do respond to, though, are factual deals. They know that privileges have consequences. You get the car on Saturday night, if your homework is done. No work, no car. That’s fair.
Beyond this, teenagers are just plain difficult to raise. During those years the relations between parents and children are often strained. Many parents would just as soon skip those years of parenthood. But it is rather unfair to one-sidedly blain the teenage children for these relational difficulties. Teenager children need to know that they are not the only ones going through a difficult time. At the time that teenage children are going through an identity crisis, their parents are most likely having a crisis of their own. They are approaching middle age and they wonder, not what they are going to do with their life, but whether what they have done with their life so far was worthwhile. In addition, they worry about the welfare of their own parents in addition to worries about the welfare of their teenaged children. They feel sandwiched between the younger, and the older generation. Teenagers ought to reckon with this fact as you relate to their parents. Perhaps they should talk to their about the problems their parents are having. If they do, they will discover that they and their parents will have lots to talk about.
D. Young Adulthood: Generativity
Teenagers change for the better when they become young adults, and so do their parents when they become accustomed to middle age. Young adults are more organized and more goal directed. They are also more apt to go their own way without consulting their parents. In essence parents no longer have any control over them. All that parents of young adults can do is be generative toward them. Being generative means that you want to be there for them, without wanting to steer them and without expecting anything in return. Helping the next generation generatively means helping them as an end in itself, for them, not for yourself. If the parents can handle that, then their young adult children will come to them from time to time with their problems. They run their lives by their parents, who can give them advice, free of charge. In essence young adults are at home with their parents for the holidays only, after which they fly out again. Parents and children should celebrate those times together, for that type of relating has its own intrinsic value.
E. Midlife: Freeing Yourself
When children enter young adulthood, parents become middle-aged. Middle-age is the time when parents feel sandwiched between their aging parents and their growing children and it is a time when children have become adults who frequently have started families of their own. The combined demands of both parents and children weigh heavily on middle-aged people. For children it is a time when they experience a conflict between following in their parents’ footsteps and charting a new path of their own. For these reasons children should give up trying to please their parents and parents should give their children permission to
stand on their own two feet. I mean, parents can let their children know that they are most welcome in their home, but also that they have your own life to live. Really, parents, your adult children will understand this. The point is not that you stop caring for your children in deed, but that you rid yourself of their emotional hooks into your flesh. When middle-aged parents stop feeling sandwiched, they will want to be with their children, and their children with them.
At this stage of their lives children of middle-aged parents, if things are right, begin to experience a reversal of roles. Instead of expecting their parents to be concerned with their welfare they now begin to feel concern about the welfare of their parents. At this stage middle-aged parents can confess to their children that they don't have it all together. When they do, they are likely to experience a caring response from their children in return.