Family: A Well-Oil Machine

    Happy Friday! First off, I just wish y’all were able to be in my class this week. We had such great discussions. My mind was going a million miles a minute and I jotted down so many things that I wanted to say in my post. I am praying that I am able to write clearly and effetely all that I want to say. I really want my readers to take away things that will help them understand families and relationships within families so they can improve their own. I can’t express enough how important families are. I know that some of my reader might not agree with me on that because they haven’t had the best family or idea family life; I’m one of those people. My family has so many faults and problems. Growing up in my family was hard. My parents divorced when I was about 11 years old. It lead to so many emotional heartaches and problems that my siblings and I had to deal with, and continue to deal with 20 years later. The things that I have seen my siblings go through as a result of my parents divorcing has been heartbreaking and maddening (anger towards my father) to watch. BUT because of being able to have a first hand experience in seeing what happens when a family is torn apart it has testified to me and has left me knowing 100% that what it says in The Family Proclamation is true. 

“The family is ordained of God. Marriage between man and woman is essential to His eternal plan. Children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity. Happiness in family life is most likely to be achieved when founded upon the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities. By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children. In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners. Disability, death, or other circumstances may necessitate individual adaptation.”

    Our Heavenly parents have had countless opportunities to observe families and what is the best arrangement for families and the roles that fathers and mothers have. I am nervous to voice this aloud because I do not want to upset anyone or offend. There are exceptions of course to this and the matter should be between the husband and wife in prayer with God. Just think, if there isn’t either a mom or a dad in the family then that means the parent who is there must do double duty and not spend most of their energy on their divine role. I can see this in my own family after my parents divorced. My mom couldn’t be at home with us like she use to be since she had to provide for our family now. We saw less of her. Not having my dad around, my sisters and I lost the male figure in life, which left a gap in us. I’m not sure exactly what that gap was but I do know we tried lots of ways to fill it. I want to know if you’ve seen differences between families that are different from this traditional divine family model and what those differences are.  

    This week in class we focused on the Family Systems Theory, which just means that families are like a mechanical system where all the parts (members of a family) work together as a whole and are interconnected. So, if something happens to one part or person in the family is affects the other parts or people. For example, when a family grows that means the mother will be able to give her other children less attention since she will need to give a lot of her time to the new baby. Routines are disrupted and roles that every member has is thrown off. The smooth working machine is now not so smooth. After time, members of the family will find new roles to play that include the new baby to help make the machine or family work smoothly again. As I apply this idea to my own family, I totally see the truth in this. Every time we have had another baby it changes the whole dynamic of our family and what we are use to. It’s totally true when people say “the first 3 months are the hardest” because during those first few months everyone in the family is trying to figure out how to get back to “normal” or adjust and find their place/role in the family again. Have you seen that in your own families or in another family? Or have you seen another example of families being thrown a wrench and having to get back on track? 

    I want you to think about you and your siblings and the roles that you had growing up. Were you the peacemaker, comedian/tension reliever, influencer, or the “other” mom? Or something else? For me, I was the peacemaker. I wanted to help my siblings and keep the peace in our family. My older sister was the “other mom”. Now, these roles can change and should change as the family changes so it can keep working as a smooth oiled “machine”. The mom and dad should play the roles as equal partners who work together to help keep it in balance. My husband plays another role that we like to call the “blue bottom monkey”. There’s a TV show on Disney + that goes behind the scenes of Animal Kingdom and all the animals there. In one episode they talk about the Blue Bottom Monkeys. There were just three females there who had started to fight a lot with each other. The workers decided to bring in a male so the females would stop fighting because in the wild these monkeys had a male leader to keep their system or family in check. After watching that episode, we realized that my husband was the blue bottom monkey in our family. We have three daughters who would fight all the time but once dad came home there was this calming peace and home didn’t feel off balanced anymore. When my husband is home, I think my children and I feel this sense of completeness and security, that we can conquer anything that comes our way. It testifies to me that we are stronger and better when our family is all together. I think that is what our Heavenly parents want us to feel when our family is working smoothly together. I’m not saying that life must be going smoothly and perfectly to feel this because that’s not true or realistic. Everyday there is someone at my house who’s screaming or hitting or taking toys away. I sometimes lose my patience and snap at one of my daughters or my two-year old is crying because he can’t play with the Instant Pot. But we work through those times together. We own up to our mistakes and apologize. We help one another and try to do what we can to make sure the Spirit is in our home. We are sometimes a well-oiled machine that runs smoothly, but there are lots of times when a wrench gets thrown in and causes our family to get off balance. Thankfully though, through the grace of Jesus, we find a way to work through that hiccup and get back to running smoothly together. And I know very family can, no matter how many parents are at home. I think if families work together towards a common goal and know their purpose, then that family can get through anything that life throws at them. 

    I want to hear your thoughts and questions so please leave them below in the comments. If you have a different view than me please share! I want to hear other people's thought on this. 

♡♡♡-Allison

This is a video my professor showed us to help explain the Family Systems Theory. It's not a perfect description of it because families can recover and keep going even if one member messes up or if something gets off track, but it does show that everyone works together, big and small.