Learn about the precautions we are taking to protect our patients during COVID-19. Click Here.
Families
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
What is a family? This may sound like a ridiculous question to most people. After all, families are families. The term is self-explanatory . . . or is it? A family is a group of people related by blood and marriage. But the term is multiple-layered with meaning, significance, and expectation. Our culture (and most cultures) construct the family as the essential building block of society, consisting of virtually indestructible bonds between related groups of people.
Representations of family usually depict family members as protective of one another, unerringly loyal, loving, caring, and supportive. Members of a family “have each other’s back” and are supposed to take you back and help you get back on your feet no matter how bad the blow life has dealt you and no matter how bad the mistakes are that you may have made. Family takes care of you when you are ill and bails you out of jail when you are in trouble.
Needless to say, this is not everyone’s experience of family. Families are anything but unidimensional. Most families embody a mixture of loyalty and back-biting, rescuing and distancing, loving and criticizing, acceptance, conditional love, and outright rejection. Certainly, there are a few families that may express most of the loving and positive qualities of family and a few of the negative aspects, but many other families seem to contain more conflict and criticism than love and acceptance. Add to this the fact that families do not treat all members of the family the same way.
Part of adulthood is coming to terms with our personal experience of family during our growing up years and another part is defining and re-creating our ideas of family to reflect our own personal values and needs. Whether your family embodied many elements of the cultural ideal or deviated far from this ideal, most of us have had our own opportunity to reshape our image of what it means to be a family.
Today, our families may be defined by the types of relationships we have with specific people in our lives, regardless of blood or marriage. We call these our “families of choice”. Family is an incredibly complex notion and we all have different experiences of being part of a family. Let’s discuss some of yours.
1) What, in your opinion, makes a family a family? What qualities and characteristics do you associate with being part of a family?
2) Who does your family consist of now?
3) How is the family you created as an adult similar to or different from your family of origin? Have you succeeded in creating the type of family you wanted to create for yourself, your partner, and your children (if you have children)?
4) As you are aging, which is becoming more salient for you—your family of blood relations or your family of choice?
All rights reserved © 2020 Beth Firestein, Ph.D. Wise Women Group
Recent Posts
FOOD FOR THOUGHT Our Personal Style of Living As I talk to many different women, I notice that different women have different styles of living. These styles define us both during the working/parenting years and after we have retired and…
Read MoreFOOD FOR THOUGHT An almost universal concern for the women that come to see me is the challenge involved in relating across generational boundaries within the family. These challenges include relating to young children, adult children, grandchildren, older or elderly…
Read MoreFOOD FOR THOUGHT We think a great deal about our relationships. We consider and analyze our relationships with family, friends, coworkers, even our casual acquaintances, but we seem to overlook our most important relationship—our relationship with ourselves. We are constantly…
Read MoreFOOD FOR THOUGHT Many people create New Year’s resolutions, and these can pertain to many different life areas. Most common are resolutions having to do with fitness, losing weight, completing unfinished projects, or just being a better human being. We…
Read MoreFood for Thought Home is a word rich with depth, meaning, and nuance. At its most basic level, we tend to think of “home” as the house in which we grew up, usually having the connotation of permanence or longevity.…
Read MoreFOOD FOR THOUGHT Life is not simple but it need not be as complicated as we usually make it. Often, life is simultaneously both simple and complex. For example, the needs of the newborn infant are simple—to be held, loved,…
Read MoreFood for Thought Most women view purpose as synonymous with giving, taking care of others, teaching, or mentoring. If, as women, we are not giving to others, we have no sense of purpose. This reflects a very narrow definition of…
Read MoreFOOD FOR THOUGHT One of the most common topics that arise in our group discussions and in my one-on-one counseling with older women is the question of life purpose. Some women have experienced a life-long struggle to define their sense…
Read MoreFood for Thought Clothes. As women, most of us learn in our early teen years that what we choose to wear is a form of communication, though this learning is often unconscious. For some, the message we get as girls…
Read MoreFood for Thought Wisdom comes in multiple forms and can be hard to recognize, even when it is knocking at our door or has already become a guest in our home. With every year that passes, we gain wisdom. We…
Read MoreFOOD FOR THOUGHT Fall is an amazing, strikingly colorful time of year. It is one of the most spectacular and obvious examples of nature’s dramatic propensity to change. We move from the greens, tans, and deep blue skies of summer…
Read MoreFOOD FOR THOUGHT Courageous Acts What is courage? There are many ways to define courage. Some definitions I have come across include “strength in the face of pain or grief” and “the ability to do something that you know is…
Read MoreFOOD FOR THOUGHT One of the most common topics that arise in our group discussions and in my one-on-one counseling with older women is the question of life purpose. Some women have experienced a life-long struggle to define their sense…
Read MoreFOOD FOR THOUGHT The idea of the bucket list was popularized in the 2007 film of the same name. The “bucket list” refers to things we want to do before we “kick the bucket”–positive, life-enhancing things. The film features Morgan…
Read MoreFOOD FOR THOUGHT The quality of our lives is shaped by many forces. Some of these experiences were harsh, painful, or traumatic, but others have been inspiring, uplifting, and joyful. We tend to reflect upon the tragedies and disappointments and…
Read MoreFOOD FOR THOUGHT One of the most frequent topics that come up for my clients is the issue of caregiving. This is a role that may fall to any member of the family but usually seems to fall into our…
Read MoreFOOD FOR THOUGHT Health challenges are an ongoing part of the experience of getting older for the majority of women and men. A few people with happy genetic legacies and the good fortune not to have been in any bad…
Read MoreFOOD FOR THOUGHT Pride and humility are two of the strongest and most misunderstood feelings and attitudes we experience in the course of our human existence. Pride is usually discussed in one of two completely opposite contexts. On the positive…
Read More