Family Unity and Dealing with Outside Influences

On any given Sunday, I look around at the assembly gathered wherever I am that particular weekend and see families of all kinds. There are nuclear families of mother, father and children; there are blended families; single parents with children are very much in evidence; there are grandparents who have taken over the responsibilities of their grandchildren; there are aging parents living with adult children, married or unmarried.

With all of these styles of family life, one cannot think about family life with any single image. In addition, there are a variety of challenges to family life with many models of family life.

Perhaps the two most pressing challenges for all families, regardless of the family makeup, are finding ways to maintain the family unity and dealing with outside influences. Unity while respecting individuality is not easy to accomplish. Many parents have confided that they find it hard even to have meals together. With children in sports, music lessons, scouts and more, after-school time is full. Families often eat in shifts. In families where both parents work there is often not even a dinner hour or actual meal prepared.

Some families try to counteract this tendency by limiting their children’s activities outside the home. Others create a sacred space and time around family events like meals, church attendance, birthdays and other special days.

One couple told me that they learned that quantity time was as important as quality time. They found that they needed time just to hang out with their children. Like praying together, they had discovered that the family that plays together stays together.

Striving for unity overlaps with the challenge to limit outside influences on the family. Some families, afraid of what their children have to face in the world, shield their children from almost any outside influence. Other parents have chosen not to insulate their children from the world but to help them learn to make good judgments about what they encounter.

For example, I know a mother who is very careful when her adolescent daughters ask to go to a movie or watch a video with a questionable moral. She will take them only if they watch it together and then talk about it afterwards. Although the girls aren’t excited to watch with their mother, they do agree. The follow-up discussions are most helpful in preparing them for future decision making.

When it comes to creating family unity and filtering outside influences, the burden in family life rests on the parents. On the one hand, parents are limited and cannot control everything their children have to face. One the other hand, there is a lot parents can do. Primarily, they can provide leadership and direction.

It is clear to me in working with parents that they want to do their job well. Many feel, however, that there is an invisible bar of expectation for them to jump over. Added to that are pressures from the outside to conform to what other parents are allowing.

Some parents vacillate between being too strict and too lenient. This inconsistency itself makes it hard for children to learn limits.

Finally, there are parents who are afraid to be parents. They want to be popular with their children or they are too tired to hold firm to their convictions, so they give in.

More than once I’ve overheard a child who was not getting their way say to the mother: “I hate you!” It’s always a harsh reminder for me of what parents sometimes face in trying to live up to certain standards.

Family life is not easy!! Nonetheless, it is through the grace of families striving every day that countless young people get their start in life, discovering the art of living with respect and compassion.